Last One Standing
by Twisted Flame
Summary: This is the prequel to Bidding Begins in the soontobe trilogy Meant to Live. Piper won't ever let Chris go vanquishing with the family, but what happens when the Halliwells don't come back and Chris is the only one left?
1. Chapter 1

**This is an AU futurefic in which Chris is over 14 and Piper hasn't yet died. It's also set before Wyatt has started to turn evil. I think that's pretty much all you need to know for now, and extra characters will be outlined as we go along, rather than a huge list here that you probably won't remember…**

**This is probably a kind of prequel to BB in the trilogy (the sequel to BB is coming out soon) Meant To Live. Enjoy.**

**Twisted Flame**

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**Last One Standing**

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"Mom, please!" Seventeen-year-old Chris pleaded, following her to the dryer. She had a basketful of wet washing under one arm and as she bent down to load it, she shook her head.

"No, Chris," Piper said firmly, slamming the door harder than she meant to and starting the cycle, pushing past her son to get back into the kitchen, "And that's my final word,"

"But…"

"Chris, no buts!" Piper said, sounding exasperated, "I am not taking you on our next vanquish, ok? So just… please stop asking,"

"You took Wyatt when he was may age, younger even!"

"Well, Honey, you don't exactly have a force field of any kind, and Wyatt-"

"Twice-blessed? Special? Yeah, I've heard it all before," Chris interrupted bitterly as his mother dipped a potion pan in the sink and began scrubbing it vigorously.

"If you've heard it all before then why do you keep asking me?"

"Because I want to go!" Chris said, "I mean Aunt Phoebe lets Prue go, and Prue's like, five years younger than me!"

"Three and a half!" The girl in question called from the Dining Room, where she was apparently doing her homework. She was the fourteen – nearly fifteen as she told everyone – year old daughter of Phoebe. Prue was short – a trait she appeared to have inherited from all of the Halliwell witches – and her brown hair was currently tied in a sleek knot at the nape of her neck.

She bent low over her Trig homework, dark brown eyes clouding with confusion, her forehead creasing in concentration.

"Butt out, Prue!" Chris shot back, before turning to his mother. "And Megan, she's even younger than Prue, and she gets to go…"

"Megan is not my concern, Chris. It's your Aunt Paige's choice to put her in danger, and I'm your mother and I say that I don't want you getting hurt. So just stay home and maybe next year we'll see, ok?"

"But-"

"Final word Chris," Piper warned, putting the pan on the side to dry, "Don't make me go over this again,"

Chris, recognizing the finality of her tone, admitted defeat and turned away from her, opened the basement door and went down the stairs. The basement was now host to two beds, white walls and a blue carpet. It even now boasted an en-suite bathroom. This was the room he shared with Wyatt – his cousins in the old nursery upstairs and the sisters in their respective rooms.

Wyatt wasn't in the bedroom and Chris thought he had some kind of sports practice today after school, so he stepped over all of the stuff littering the floor and went to lie on his bed, staring at the concrete ceiling.

_It's not fair_, he thought sulkily, _everyone else gets to vanquish demons…_

That was true, his whole family often came back covered in slime, the five girls racing for the shower and hot water first while Wyatt was either elbowed out of the way or completely clean due to his force field.

And despite dripping with gloop of various hues, they always looked so happy, so buzzed and excited, so very family like… And even though Wyatt wasn't being purposely mean he could rarely resist giving his brother a blow-by-blow account of the vanquishing.

He sighed and stretched, chewing on his bottom lip. There had to be a way to persuade her somehow, he could get round her if he really put his mind to it… He smiled, thinking up a better argument to use next time.

The door opened and Wyatt – now eighteen - appeared at the top of the stairs. He clattered down into the room, dumping his sports bag on his bed.

"Hey, Chris, what's up?" Wyatt said, grabbing his normal clothes out of the bag and tossing them onto the bed as well. He was still dressed in shorts and a t-shirt – Chris guessed today's sport had been basketball.

"Nothing," Chris replied dully, staring at the ceiling still.

"You didn't persuade Mom to let you go a-vanquishing then?"

"No," There was a pause, and then Chris rolled over, a confused look on his face, "I mean I don't even get why she doesn't let me go, I'm seventeen now… Aunt Paige lets Meg go, and Meg's only just turned thirteen…"

"She doesn't want you to get hurt, kiddo," Wyatt explained, pulling off his sneakers and throwing them under his bed.

"Why does everyone think I'm going to get hurt?"

Wyatt shrugged again, "Listen, Mom says dinner's soon, so I'm gonna shower, ok?" Chris just nodded and rolled back onto his back, resuming his intent study of the ceiling. Wyatt pulled off his shirt and tossed it at the laundry basket in the corner. The lid was on so it slid down the back. Wyatt turned and walked into the bathroom and Chris heard the lock click and then water running.

"Dinner!" Piper called from upstairs, and Chris heaved himself off of his bed and climbed the stairs.

Piper hadn't felt like cooking properly, so a large Caesar salad was on the dining room table when Chris entered the kitchen. Prue, her math work pushed onto a chair next to her, was helping herself to a brown bread roll and buttering it.

Phoebe came into the room next, pushing her glasses up onto her head. Paige, who appeared in her seat in a shower of orbs, reaching for the vinaigrette dressing, followed her.

"Wyatt's just finishing up in the bathroom," Chris told Piper, sitting down as well.

"Well he'd better hurry up," Piper said, "Because after this group is done; there won't be any left,"

"Megan, dinner!" Paige called to the ceiling, but got no reply.

"Chris, your cousin's probably listening to music again; can you orb upstairs and get her?"

"Sure, I mean what else are my powers for?" Chris rolled his eyes and disappeared as Piper gave him a reproving glare.

"Meg, dinner," Chris called shortly, appearing in her room. She was floating near the ceiling; underneath her crossed legs, a small patch of orbs twinkled, reminiscent of a flying carpet. She had inherited her mother's pale skin, but not the natural hair colour of the Halliwells. She had inherited orbing from her mother despite being only quarter whitelighter (Leo thought it had something to do with dominant whitelighter genes) as well as levitation and the ability to freeze time.

"Whoa!" Megan screeched, opening her eyes and seeing Chris. She fell from the air and hit the mattress hard, earning a groan of protest. She ripped off her cordless headphones and glared at him, "Thanks for the warning, Chris," Meg hissed angrily, flipping blonde hair out of her face.

"What, the bright blue lights weren't enough?"

"Not when I had my eyes closed," She snapped, swinging her legs off of the bed. "I was meditating, what do you want?"

"Dinner's on the table," He told her before orbing out. She gave a growl of anger before disappearing as well and following him into the dining room.

When they got downstairs Wyatt was there, blond hair still wet from the shower. Everyone was digging into plates full of salad, and Megan and Chris took their seats.

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Chris was sitting alone in the conservatory, the remote in his hand. There was nothing on, he was just channel surfing, waiting for something remotely interesting to come up. Outside it was night, and inside only one light was on, meaning that the TV was the main inconsistent and flickering light source.

He flipped channels again, stabbing the 'up' button on the remote with his thumb. Orbing lights appeared behind the couch, forming a man in golden robes.

"Hey, Dad," Chris said, his voice bored and not taking his eyes off the TV.

"Chris, where's your Mom and Aunts?" Leo asked.

"I'm fine, thanks, how are you?"

"I don't have time for this, Chris,"

"Then sense them instead of asking me stupid questions,"

Leo gave a sigh of annoyance and located his nieces in their room, Wyatt in the basement, Phoebe in the living room with Paige and Piper in the kitchen. He walked through the darkened Dining Room and into the kitchen, where he spotted Piper unloading the dishwasher.

"Leo?"

"Piper, hi… Listen there's-"

"A demon? Great… PAIGE! PHOEBE!" She called, and the two sisters joined her in the kitchen.

"Another demon?" Paige asked, seeing Leo, "Ok, what have we got this time?"

"It's a demon that wants to feed off of your powers," Leo filled them in, "literally suck them right out of you. His name's is Drox, and-" He turned as Chris entered the room, but the teen motioned for them to continue.

"Don't mind me, I just wanted some milk," He said, going to the fridge and opening it. He noticed that the adults weren't talking any more. He could tell by the faces of his Mom and Aunts that they were communicating without talking. Ever since Phoebe's powers had grown to include telepathy, the sisters' bond had allowed them to talk to each other in their heads. "Is Drox the power-sucking demon? I saw him in the Book… You need a potion, right?"

"Chris, don't you have some homework to do or something?" Leo asked.

"What, you can't talk demons in front of me now?" He asked, turning around with the carton of milk in his hand. "Ok, fine, I get it," Chris poured the drink, snatched the glass off of the counter and went down to the basement, narrowly missing knocking Wyatt down the stairs.

"What's all the noise about?" Wyatt asked, leaning against the doorframe.

"Latest demon, Sweetie," Piper said quietly.

"Why can't they leave us alone?" Wyatt groaned, "Do you want me to get the Book?"

"Might as well look him up if we've got to kill the sucker," Paige said, sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs. Wyatt waved his hand at the kitchen table and the Book formed there in a cloud of orbs.

"What have we got?"

"Drox, he's a power-sucking demon,"

"Ok…" Wyatt sat down in front of the Book and with a flick of his fingers flipped the cover open, "Drox, power-sucking…" The pages began to whir very fast until they stopped on a page depicting a demon dressed in a long black robe. His hood was currently down, but it was large enough to obscure his head if he chose to put it up.

His skin was mottled and green in some places, in others the flesh was almost human-coloured. He had scars – some kind of rune – carved into both of his palms, and an enlarged picture of his left hand was shown at the bottom on the page, complete with long, knobbly fingers and yellowing nails with half-moon crescents of filth underneath them.

"So what do we need?"

"There's a potion…" Wyatt said, turning the book around so his aunt wouldn't have to read it upside down.

Piper gave an exasperated sigh, "I just washed the potion pot," She grumbled, grabbing it off of the side and putting it on the gas burner, "So, what do we need?"

"Something smells totally gross," Prue grimaced, walking into the kitchen and met by a large cloud of smoke. She choked slightly, "You can smell that all the way upstairs, you know?"

"Sorry, Sweetie, we left the vents open," Phoebe bent down next to the vent in the kitchen and slid it shut.

"Either there's potion brewing going on or someone besides Aunt Piper tried to cook," Megan said, appearing from the Dining Room at her cousin's side.

"Hey, don't be bratty," Paige warned.

"Sorry,"

"Oh leave her be, Paige, it's a well-known fact that no Halliwell but Piper can do anything more than boil water," Phoebe said, although it was unlikely she would have taken this from her own daughter. Piper threw the last ingredient in and the potion gave a soft 'bang' before settling down and turning a cool blue colour.

"Potion's done!" Piper said, using an oven glove to waft away the fumes.

Chris listened to the footsteps above him in the kitchen and sighed. The whole family was now there by the sounds of it, getting ready to go and vanquish Drox. He'd heard that much before they'd stopped talking.

How come they all got to vanquish demons? As well as the offensive power of telekinesis, he could also orb and levitate out of danger – something he had inherited from the hovering ability of whitelighters and his family heritage.

His Mom was being so damn _unreasonable_, he knew that she didn't want him getting hurt but she was happy to put her own life on the line while he sat at home and waited for them to come back like some worried parent. Wyatt came back in shortly after that, and Chris looked up at his brother, who was outlined in the light from the kitchen.

"What, not orbing off to kill Drox?" Chris asked bitterly as his brother clicked on the light and shut the door, forcing Chris to squint quickly.

"Mom thought we should sleep first," Wyatt sighed, "Kill him in the morning," There was a long pause and then Wyatt spoke up again, "Chris I don't know why you're so bitter about this. All we do is nearly die in order to throw some potion at a demon,"

"Yeah, how come everyone else is allowed to 'nearly die' except me? How come I'm not allowed to go?"

"Chris, I don't know the reasons behind what Mom thinks but you're her youngest child, she thinks she needs to keep you safe…"

"I don't want to be safe!"

"Well get used to it, kiddo, because that's what Mom thinks and what Mom says goes…" Chris scowled, both at the nickname and what Wyatt said. Wyatt rolled his eyes and gestured at Chris, levitating him into the air.

"Wyatt!" Chris protested. Wyatt had always done this when they were kids to cheer him up; before Chris realized that he could levitate on his own, he had loved floating. But now he was a teenager, it was just embarrassing. "Put me down!" He crossed his legs and sat Indian style, glaring at his brother. "Well?" Wyatt grinned at him, forcing him higher, "Wyatt, quit it!" He whined, struggling against the power that held him there.

"You used to like that,"

"Well I don't any more!" Chris snapped, and Wyatt put him back down on the bed with a slightly hurt look.

"Chris, if you're going to act like a kid, Mom is going to treat you like one,"

"I'm not a kid!"

"Whatever… Night," Wyatt said, climbing in between the sheets and flipping the light of with telekinesis, leaving Chris standing speechless in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

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Yay, this is finally up! I'm sorry about the delay, I've had a huge workload piled on me, that and the fact that my beta flew far away, so yeah… I'm really, _really_ sorry, and I do normally update faster than this, just not this time… Anyway enjoy.**

**Some people own Charmed. I am not one of those people. Congrats on working that out, don't you just feel so smart?**

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They all left quietly the next morning, perhaps in the hope that Chris wouldn't hear them leave and try to start another argument. However, he heard them go (woken up by Wyatt's orbing lights) and laid listening to the hushed voices and footsteps thudding around the kitchen floor above him. Chris sat up and pulled the comforter around his shoulders, drawing his legs up to his chest and leaning against the wall.

It was a Saturday, but instead of stretching luxuriously and rolling over for another two or three hours sleep, he was sitting awake, listening to his family and brooding. He still didn't see why his Mom wanted to keep him so safe, so sheltered… She had once confided in him that, when she was new to Wicca, she used to believe that it had ruined her life (whether she still thought that she chose not to divulge) and maybe she thought that she didn't want the same thing to happen to Chris…

But he'd had his powers since birth; she had only got them six years before he was born. Chris had grown up with witches and demons and, in particular, magic and saw no reason to think that it was going to ruin his life in any way by killing just one demon.

His Whitelighter senses kicked in as he felt the family orb away, and he sat still for a few minutes, gnawing on his bottom lip and staring absently at a sock on the floor. Then, with a sudden determination and spurt of speed he had lunged halfway across the room to the phone in the corner, muttered to the voice-activated dialler and listened to it ring.

Whether it was a grunt or a groan that greeted him Chris couldn't tell, but by the sounds of it, he had just disturbed someone who _had_ been sleeping. He looked at the clock; it was just after eight in the morning. Wincing guiltily, he answered the grunt.

"Hey, Morning Sunshine, want to go on a vanquish?"

"Ha, ha, funny Chris. No go back to sleep like normal people on a Saturday morning," The voice was muffled, as if the mouth talking was still half-embedded in a pillow.

"No, I mean it. Come on; come kill a demon with me? Please?"

"Why...?" Ben asked, sounding whiney. "I'm tired,"

"Because it'll be fun… You know, demons go _poof,_ we get an adrenaline rush…"

"Chris, I'm sure you don't realize this, so I'm going to tell you: _It's early_ - it's too early to be killing demons… Why do you want to go, did your family dump you again?"

In a combination of how early it was and the fact that he'd been woken up Ben had forgotten to be tactful. Chris often complained of being left out, telling him that his family had 'dumped him again' but it was not something that he should have said to Chris.

"Look, man, I'm sorry, it's just… early, you know?" Ben apologized quickly, realizing his mistake as he rubbed sleep from his eyes, "And I'm irritable without caffeine, you know that…"

"Fine," Chris replied coolly.

"Look, Chris…" Ben scrabbled about to get Chris to accept his apology, "Ok, look, I'll go with you… Give me… five minutes yeah?"

"Cool, see you then," They hung up and Chris went to get dressed. They often planned – well, Chris often planned and then persuaded Ben – to go and kill a demon or two while Chris' family were out vanquishing.

The two teens did it sometimes with and sometimes without the aid of their Hunter friends, who went to the same High School as them. But Chris had found them even grumpier than Ben if he woke them up early, and hadn't called them. This had all, of course, been planned in secret, because he was sure his Mom would go ballistic if she ever found out about his demon-slaying, especially after she had banned him from going on all the family vanquishes.

He felt the afore mentioned buzz of adrenaline surge through him and he grinned, dashing about the room, pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, throwing a lightweight jacket over the top. From a small draw in the desk near the foot of his bed, he pulled an athame, a present given to him on his sixteenth birthday that had a Triquetera on in, each point marked with a small glinting emerald 'to match your eyes' as Piper had told him fondly.

Chris put the athame into his waistband and pulled out several vials of potion from the drawer as well, each stopped with a cork. They were all exploding potions, and if the demon was low level enough they usually worked.

He ran into the bathroom and quickly scrubbed his teeth and ran a comb through long and unruly brown hair, glancing at the clock again. Ben had seven minutes now, so he orbed out of the basement.

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His friend was sitting cross-legged on the bed, light brown hair looking tousled and untidy and although it was not as long as Chris's - it was shorter by around two inches. He had hazel eyes which were currently clouded with sleep and, standing at about five ten, was shorter than Chris.

However he came from a family of witches as old – if not older than – Chris's own. Every three generations, a witch was born into the family, and Ben had fallen on the third generation. The last witch in his family had been his grandmother, who had died young at the hands of a demon before she had reached thirty.

"Who are we killing today?" Ben asked by way of a morning greeting. He still looked half asleep.

"I thought we'd go after some Andura demons," Andura demons lived in large groups, were low-level and often used as cannon fodder. Upper-level demons used them to carry out their dirty work, and Chris had overheard his two aunts talking about their scrying turning up a group of them underground near the outskirts of San Francisco.

Ben shrugged, "That's cool with me," And Chris orbed them away.

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"Are you _sure_ this is where the crystal landed?" Piper asked Paige, for what had to be at least the fifth time. They had not found Drox yet, despite creeping further and further into the forest where the map had told them that he was hiding.

"Piper, _yes_," Paige whispered back, "He's probably just hiding, doing that ambush thing that demons like to do so much," Megan shivered slightly, out of anticipation, excitement and fear. She was clutching a vial tight in her hand, and had to keep reminding herself not to squeeze it too hard or it would break in her fist.

Adrenaline made hearts pump faster and blood pound in their ears, magnifying every noise that was made. The sun was getting higher as they walked, but the further they went, the denser the foliage got, so it in fact got darker. The trees pressed down on them claustrophobically, and they walked on a carpet of dead leaves, twigs, moss and compacted earth. Silence reigned.

Prue walked alongside her mother, channelling everyone's fear just as Phoebe was. As well as empathy, Prue could see the future, but, like her mother, had no active powers. Phoebe yawned and continued to trudge forward with her family, straining her ears for any noise. So far there was nothing, no Drox, no anything, unless you counted that crow which had rustled its wings and made Piper blow up the tree stump it was resting on.

So it came as a total surprise when an energy ball turned part of a tree trunk into a flurry of soggy, charred wood chippings. They all ducked instinctively and Paige and Megan were near enough to be caught in the rain of wood. Cursing like mother and daughter they turned to face the enemy.

Drox was standing behind them, an energy ball rotating slowly in his palm. He smiled, revealing a face much more disfigured than it looked in the Book of Shadows. It was greener now and with some pretty bad scars, not helped by the twisted smile on his face.

"So, you brought the whole family along? Thank you, that certainly makes things better for me," Wyatt formed his shield and sent it rushing at Drox in an arrow-type formation, but Drox disappeared and it blew up another tree. Wyatt recalled it and it vanished.

Drox appeared again, both palms facing Wyatt, the runes carved there glowing blood red. Wyatt struggled to draw breath and Drox closed his eyes, feeling waves of power enter him. The blonde teen fell to the ground, hands around his throat, trying to force away Drox's power.

The two empaths of the group rebounded Drox's attack from Wyatt, throwing the demon into a tree with the backlash of it. Wyatt got shakily to his feet, flexing his fingers dangerously. Drox clambered up as well, snarling at Phoebe and Prue and sending them flying backwards with a wave of his hand.

Piper gestured to blow him up, but it only mildly staggered him, and he grinned at her, sending her to land sprawled by her sister and niece. Pain shot through her head and spots danced in front of her vision as her head struck a rock, and Drox turned to Wyatt again, palms blazing.

Wyatt put up his shield but the runes burned the shape through the shimmering blue wall and reached Wyatt's chest, branding it. Wyatt cried out in pain as his shield failed and the power knocked him to the ground. Megan's hands shot out, but the power passing from Wyatt to Drox protected him from the freezing spell. A potion had the same affect, shattering harmlessly nowhere near Drox.

"Uh… Wyatt!" Paige called, orbing her nephew away from the demon. Drox growled and raised his hands to the sky, throwing out a blue ring from his middle and blasting everyone, knocking them out.

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"Hi," Chris said as the orbing lights faded. He looked around the room they were in and counted seven Andura demons in what appeared to be a large dry sewer tunnel, maybe even a storm drain. Smaller pipes led off to the sides, each blocked with a hefty metal grate. In the floor there were two holes, each of them uncovered and gaping.

The Andura demons were electric blue, with a darker blue circle on their lower abdomens and pebbly skin, the bumps standing out from their flesh.

Immediately Chris threw two potions and vanquished the two nearest to him before they could move in a burst of fire. Despite being low level they could still throw energy balls, and the first one caught Chris in the shoulder and made him drop his potion. It rolled down into one of the holes and shattered.

"That wasn't nice," Chris growled, bringing the puddle up from below and throwing it at the demon that had attacked him. That demon died too. The next energy ball was aimed at Ben, but the young witch flicked his hands reflexively and it turned to ice, becoming too heavy to fly towards him. It fell to the floor and shattered. Ben currently had two powers, astral projection and cyrokinesis (power over ice), and had learned to use them both to great effect.

The remaining four Andura demons raised their hands to the concrete ceiling, the circles glowing ferociously suddenly. Both the teenagers took an involuntary step backwards, uncertain.

"Uh… Is that meant to be happening?" Ben asked, shielding his eyes from what was now as burning light.

"Not that I know of…" Chris said, taking another nervous step back. Slowly the light began to dim, getting less and less bright until it was not there any more. Suddenly bright blue hands gripped Chris's upper arms, and when he looked left he saw that Ben had been captured in the same way.

He turned his head even more and saw that a further twenty or so Andura demons had appeared behind them.

"They were calling for reinforcements?!"

"Looks like it," Ben flicked his hands and froze the four demons in front of them into blocks of ice and then struggled to turn around to use his power on the demons behind them, but cruel fingers just dug deeper into his arm. Chris uncorked a potion and threw it backwards into the face of the demon that was holding him, ducked out of the way of the explosion, and used telekinesis to fling away the rest of the group one by one until an energy ball blew him backwards and down one of the holes.

Ben raised his hands again, but another demon shimmered in and grabbed his wrists, putting pressure on just the right place to make Ben's knees buckle with pain. This Andura demon had three interlinked circles on him, which were more pronounced against his body than the circles of the other demons.

"Well, well. Two young witches…" He squeezed harder and Ben let out a small moan of pain, "Now what could I do with you?"

"You won't be doing anything with us," Chris growled from the hole, tossing a potion out at him. It shattered on his chest but he didn't die.

"You see that might work on some of my minions," He said, "But on me? I think not," He barely glanced at his chest, where a bubbling potion puddle appeared to be having no affect on him.

"Go to Hell," Ben spat, glaring.

"I'd like to, but the sewer is the nearest my people can get, with witches like you skulking around, vanquishing us… We're not even respected enough to get into the Underworld…"

"We're supposed to care?" Ben asked through gritted teeth.

"Well the boys down there… You become very popular with them if you bring them gifts…"

Chris shifted his weight and felt cold pressed against his leg. Then he remembered the athame tucked into his waistband and concealed by his jacket and shirt. The leader was immune to potions but surely not to a stab wound…

He concentrated hard and felt the blade move. He willed it into the air and the knife sliced through the air and came to rest lodged in the demon's throat.

The demon made a gurgling noise and clutched at the dagger, letting go of Ben's wrists. Ben fell to the floor, rubbing his arms just as the leader was vanquished in a burst of fire that blasted Ben down the hole on top of Chris.

"Ok, ow," Ben muttered, standing up.

"You?! You didn't just get landed on!" Chris orbed them out of the pipe, and Ben flicked his wrist angrily at the demons that had been hovering, uncertain, behind their leader and they all became ice statues. Chris threw them into the wall with a flick of his wrist and they shattered. Chunks of ice littered the floor, oozing green blood that ran thickly into a grate and dripped away.

"Remind me to never let you persuade me to go vanquishing again," Ben said, eyeing the scorch mark that had been the leader and the trail of blood disappearing down a drain.

"You always say that. I know you had fun," Ben didn't deny that, he just shook his head, grinning, as Chris orbed them away.

* * *

"Chris?" As soon as the flurry of lights had gone from his vision, Chris found himself staring into the face of another of his friends, Bridget.

She stood at around five-and-a-half feet tall, and had black hair that was cut quite short, around shoulder-length. She had naturally pale skin, and the fact that her hair was black made it look even whiter. She had brown eyes that were looking right at him – he could tell she was annoyed.

"Where _were_ you?" She demanded, "We called at Ben's, but his Mom said that he's probably gone out with you, and so we came here, but you weren't here…"

"There's no one here," Bridget's blonde companion added, looking around the foyer. She was maybe two inches taller than Bridget, with her blonde hair pulled back into a sensible ponytail that just brushed her shoulder blades. Her eyes were blue and her name was Nixa, and, like Bridget, she was a Hunter, a girl with excellent fighting skills who combated demons just as witches did, although they were without powers.

"No one's here?" Chris echoed, sounding slightly worried. Sure, he had intended to be back before them but a vanquish didn't normally take this long, especially with the Charmed Ones and Wyatt on the side of good.

"Nope, no Halliwells in the building. Except you," Bridget added as an afterthought. "We were gonna ask you to go to the mall with us, but Ben wasn't there, and then neither were you… And now we've wasted all the valuable time that we could have spent drinking sodas in the Food Court and… And have you been demon killing?" She asked, all in one breath.

"Yeah, a pack of Andura demons," Chris said distractedly.

"Without us?" Bridget asked incredulously.

"Hey, you've never been on the receiving end of you haven't gotten enough sleep, have you?"

"Are you implying that we're grumpy?"

"Very," Ben teased, looking at Chris who was frowning, "You're Mom and the others probably just got held up," He said reassuringly, "Nothing bad would have happened to them, I mean they're the Charmed Ones, right?"

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**Pixie Wildfire: - **It's you again! :: Gasp :: Lol, thanks for reviewing.

**ChRsTiNe17: - **Thanks :)

**M J Rosemary: -** Aw, thanks! Sorry for not updating…

**Aldrea7: -** You know, I never thought of that… If a demon came to the Manor? :: shrug :: who knows? Thanks for reviewing; I'm sorry about the really bad speed of my updating.

**cherry7up56: -** Thanks!

**Nemesis' Arrow: -** Yeah, I know I should have actually continued soon. Sorry, but I was majorly busy, just like I was for BB, so sorry about that.

**HollyShadow: -** I like my new name too, I'm glad you got that Piper was protecting Chris, thanks for that, cuz I thought I'd lose so many people over that. Thanks for reviewing!

**NoAlias****: -** Thanks a lot, and sorry I didn't update sooner. Chris is unsure as to why he's not allowed to vanquish evil, but he has a few inklings, and they were put up there, I think. Thanks for reviewing.

**Chattypandagurl****: -** Thanks a lot, sorry for not updating for a while.

**Toni: -** Thanks a lot!

**Claddagh**** Ring: - **Even if it did want to make you go and see the Thunderbirds movie, lol. I haven't seen it yet, and probably won't 'til it comes out on DVD cuz I'm lazy like that and too busy to get to the cinema, lol.

**Willows2: -** A reason hasn't been made clear as of yet, but it will be made clear.

**Dominique1: -** Soon… Yeah, well, you know from BB that I've had a problem with soon-ness, and I'm really sorry. Thanks for reviewing, glad you like what there is so far.

**AK8: -** I thought levitation would be a very Chris power, I guess someone else did too. Thanks for reviewing.

**Marysmary****: -** Because she knows what? Ok, slightly confused there, but thanks for reviewing, you were really kind. I'm really sorry about not updating, I don't usually take this long…

**princesscatie21: -** I'm sorry I couldn't get this up sooner, but thanks for reviewing!

**GaladInzel****: -**I'm sorry I didn't update sooner, thanks for your review.

**Karen: -** Yeah, she's mean. Thanks for reviewing, sorry I took so long to update.

**Taynna****: -** Your review inspired practically this whole chapter, thanks so much. Thanks for reviewing, it was really kind, and, as I said, this chapter would hardly have happened without you.

**Pink-Charmed-One: -** Thank you!

**Charmed Amber: -** Sorry for taking so long, I don't mean to, and thanks for reviewing, I don't mind lateness at all!

**Wow, shocked by how many people like this, thanks so much for all of your reviews and support, even if I did take forever to update.**


	3. Chapter 3

**_It's been a while, but congrats if you can still remember what's going on, as I appear to be having trouble... Anyhoo I don't think I own this; I'll go check with my Mommy to see what she says... I'll get back to you on that one._**

* * *

Chris, Ben, Bridget and Nixa were sitting around a round table in the Food Court in the mall. The ceiling was peaked into glass pyramids, and the sun shone in through them, dazzling anyone who looked up. The mall's omnipresent air-conditioning kept the whole place artificially cool, and fake ferns stood in faker pots around them. The food court housed a McDonalds, a chicken place, an Italian and a Dairy Queen. Bridget and Nixa had been to the latter while Chris and Ben had sodas.  
  
Across from the food court there were escalators, one going up and one going down, flanked by yet more plastic plants. There was a usual array of shops, the Gap, (which was having a sale) a Radio Shack, an art gallery, a couple of record stores and many anonymous shoe stores. Imitation marble fountains tinkled throughout and sculptures that would have been better placed in a dentist's surgery dotted the (fake) marble floor.  
  
"How many demons were there?"  
  
"You mean before or after they called for reinforcements..."  
  
"Both?"  
  
"Well there were seven... And then there were four... Then there were twenty- four plus a leader..."  
  
"Ouch..."  
  
"They're all dead, though. Courtesy of some exploding potions and Ben being able to put them on ice,"  
  
Bridget spooned the last of her cookie dough fudge mint chip into her mouth, "You still should have asked us to come, though..."  
  
"We already told you, we couldn't have woken you up if we'd tried..." Bridget was now scraping the sides of the cup to get the last of it onto her spoon.  
  
"Probably could have done with the extra firepower though, we ended up pushed down this pipe in the floor..."  
  
Nixa snorted into her Oreo blizzard, "You what?"  
  
"Hey, don't laugh,"  
  
"How do you guys even survive without us?"  
  
"Hey, we manage, we're witches, it's what we were born to do, right, Chris?"  
  
Chris was looking into the distance at a group of people standing outside the Gap. In the centre of them sitting on a bench and surrounded by ex-high school jocks and ex-high school cheerleaders was a petite woman of about twenty with red and obviously highlighted hair.  
  
"Hey, Chris, you've got no chance," Ben said with a grin, elbowing his arm and snapping him out of it.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Oh come on, that's Bianca Campbell, ex-head cheerleader, ex-high school slut... I think her status is now at college slut, actually..." Nixa mused, still eating Blizzard and surprising everyone, "What, I can't be bitchy now?"  
  
"No, you're normally the sweet one,"  
  
"Hmph, whatever,"  
  
"What is she wearing? I mean you would have thought that when she could into college her outfits would have evolved for leather tramp chic but no, maybe not. What's she's wearing is barely there,"  
  
"Ah, see, Bridget is like that all the time, Nix..." Chris was gazing back in her direction again and slowly Ben's eyes swivelled to follow suit.  
  
"Oh, hey, when you two have put your eyes and tongues back in," Bridget snapped, clipping them both around the back of the head.  
  
She got a collective "Ow!" and rolled her eyes.  
  
"Oh please, you totally deserved that," She got up to leave so Nixa quickly finished her ice cream and Ben and Chris drained the last on their sodas as Bridget stalked down the escalator. They ran to catch up with her as she got off at the bottom, clutching her bag holding the new motorcycle boots she had wanted  
  
"Hey, you shopped at Payless?" Bianca sneered as Bridget walked past. The Hunter went slightly red.  
  
"Sorry, we can't all shop at whores 'r' us, Bianca," She retorted.  
  
"What did you say to me?"  
  
"You heard," Bridget turned to walk away, but Bianca grabbed a handful of her black hair and pulled.  
  
Bridget gave a growl of indignation, before whirling round and shoving Bianca. The older girl's fingers clawed at her scalp, so Bridget punched her squarely with a right hook, the noise echoing enough to make people near them go quiet and watch.  
  
"Don't touch me," Bridget spat, trying to fix her hair again.  
  
"You bitch," Bianca said, breathing hard, her hand massaging her jaw. Bridget just gave her a hard look, put her nose in the air and began to walk off again. There was the sound of running heels from behind her, and then Bianca grabbed her around the waist and tackled her to the ground, sending her bag skidding across the tiles.  
  
She grabbed another fistful of hair and pulled, but Bridget kicked her in the stomach and flipped up from the floor. Bianca got up as well.  
  
"Come on then, you slut. You think you can take me?" Bridget asked, her eyes glinting.  
  
"Bridget, no!" Chris yelled, running over and grabbing his friend's arm, trying to drag her away. Bianca chose that time to leap at her, but Chris smacked the hands that were aiming for Bridget's throat away, "No, we were just leaving... I said NO!" Chris yelled, making a grab for Bianca's arms as she tried to slap Bridget again.  
  
One of her ex-jock friends lumbered up behind Chris and dragged him off, throwing him across the floor, "Don't touch her!"  
  
"Look, I was trying to-" Bianca and Bridget ran for each other, clashing together and falling to the ground.  
  
"So you can fight, then, you don't need some guy to protect you..." Bianca was now on top of Bridget, her hands entwined in her hair again.  
  
"Let go of me, you stupid bitch!" She managed to kick Bianca off and nursed a bleeding lip, which was scratched from one of Bianca's talon-like nails. Both the girls got up, and found Chris in the middle of them again.  
  
"Wait! Stop it!" Bianca shoved him aside and lunged back at Bridget, who grabbed the girl's arm and flipped her over. Her huge high school quarterback was back, and he drew back a fist and punched Chris in the face.  
  
"I said don't touch her!"  
  
"She touched me!" Chris yelled back, now on the floor.  
  
In the watching crowd, Ben and Nixa exchanged looks and rolled their eyes, "Come on," Sighing they went to the aid of their friends.  
  
Bridget and Bianca were now interlocked, each trying to push the other to the floor. Bianca had three scratches down her cheek, and Bridget's lip and nose were bleeding.  
  
"Bridget, come on, stop it..." Nixa pleaded, trying to separate the fray, "You're better than this..." Her reward was a sharp, misaimed slap from one of the two that snapped her head to one side and left a handprint on her face.  
  
"Dude, chill, he wasn't hurting her; he was trying to stop the fight..." Ben told the ex-football player, "That's all..." An ugly purple bruise was rising around Chris's eye. "Calm down, ok?" He grabbed Ben by the shirt and slammed the younger guy into the wall.  
  
"Stay out of this," He slammed Ben backward again, and the brunette grunted in pain "Got that?" He smashed Ben back into the wall again, "Got that?"  
  
"Ok, fine, you want to play it this way?" Ben was about to ice an important and unseen asset of the ex-jock's but Chris got their first with a roundhouse kick that sent the guy flying so far he smashed through a plate glass window and trashed the manikins on display in The Gap.  
  
"Nice concealment of your powers there, Chris..." Ben chided and the guy got up, dazed, with a ladies' sunhat on his face.  
  
"Whatever," They looked over to where the catfight was still going on, and at Nixa frantically trying to separate them. A jeering crowd now surrounded them.  
  
"Someone's gonna call those mall rent-a-cops soon..." Ben said as they made their way over to the warring females. As they fought their way through the crowd, the two gave a mighty lurch that that sent them sideways into a table. The plastic legs buckled and then snapped, sending them back onto the floor again, slightly winded from the impact.  
  
Chris grabbed Bridget's upper arm and hauled her to her feet, "Come on, Bridget, she's not worth it," He could feel Bridget's heart pounding even through her arm; he could hear her ragged breathing and see her chest heave under a torn and dirty top.  
  
Ben made a grab for Bianca just as she moved towards Bridget, grabbing her wrist and spinning her round with her own momentum. She slapped him hard across the face and he let go.  
  
"Don't you do that to him!" Bridget shrieked, struggling against Chris.  
  
"No," Nixa said firmly, thrusting Bridget's bag into her friend's chest, "We're leaving,"  
  
"Ok..." Bridget said sulkily, glaring at Bridget. "What the matter?" Bianca said, and sniffed blood back up her nose, "Can't finish me?" Bridget growled again, slipping out of Chris' grasp. She lunged from Bianca, her hands wrapping around the older girl's throat before they both tumbled backwards and landed with a splash in one of the chintzy fake marble fountains.  
  
Bridget's three friends ran over to the water feature, where the opponents both kicked up a spray trying to get at each other, but mall security wrenched them out of the water and held them. They were both dripping with dark hair plastered to their faces, shooting each other death glares and breathing heavily, various wounds bleeding and swelling.  
  
"I'm afraid we're going to have to escort you from the building," The rent- a-cop told them.  
  
"Fine, let me get my stuff..." Bianca stalked over to where a fellow cheerleader was sitting, leaving the security guard behind.  
  
"You could have taken her, B," She assured her.  
  
"It's witches," Bianca said through gritted teeth, "Witches always turn up at the wrong times... I could have had her, the little bitch..." Flipping wet hair out of her face she marched loftily through a set of sliding double doors, onto the street and out of sight.

* * *

"If I tell my Mom I got into a fight at the mall she'll never let me go again," Chris grumbled, gingerly pressing the swelling round his eye.  
  
Bridget had gone home to get changed. They couldn't help but feel she was annoyed at the way they had stepped in and tried to stop the fight, but they shrugged it off.  
  
"Listen, I have to baby-sit my cousins," Nixa said, pulling a face, "Two biggest child terrors on the face of this Earth... I'll see you later, ok?" She walked out of the Manor's driveway and off down Prescott Street.  
  
"You and me, then?"  
  
"Sure, but I have to go back for lunch," Chris used his key to unlock the front door and they both went through into the entryway.  
  
"Mom! I'm home!" Silence, except for the clock ticking, a lawnmower buzzing outside and a car rumbling past. "Mom?" Chris turned to Ben, green eyes starting to fill with panic, "She's not here, they're not here..."  
  
"Well... Ok, you go put some ice on your eye, I'll go and find a crystal in the attic, ok?"  
  
"I'll meet you there,"  
  
When Chris came up to the attic, he had some ice wrapped in a washcloth over his eye and he found Ben scrying.  
  
"Found them?"  
  
"Give me a chance... The crystal was in the middle of this forest here when I came up here, but if they're still there it's not landing there..."  
  
"Come on, I'm related..." Chris said, taking the crystal off of Ben, "Let's see if I can find them, yes?"  
  
Ben just shrugged, "Ok, fine. Just call me if you find them, or if you need me. Don't go off on your own, ok? I gotta go for this lunch thing with my Aunt..."  
  
"Will do," Ben left the attic as the crystal span in ever-widening circles, having a prism-like affect on the sunlight and fracturing it into a wavering rainbow on the wall.

**

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**

**Pixie Wildfire: - :), just :)  
  
Claddagh Ring: - Oh... I just read the date on your review and nearly died, I've just spent nearly a fortnight without updating... Oh dear... I got the jitters last time I tried to get off caffeine... Someone else said that, about Ben, that is, and I never realized that I somehow managed to model him on me... Lol, odd, huh?  
  
Flephanie: - Not so much finding out about where they went in this chapter... But yeah... sorry about that, and thanks for reviewing.  
  
Aldrea7: - Gah, this one took just as long... I don't know what's with me lately... Anyway thanks for sticking with this ad reviewing.  
  
Chattypandagurl: - Lol, yeah, it's a teenage rebellion.  
  
HollyShadow: - Thanks! Again less with the finding out about the family in this chapter but yeah...  
  
Charmed Amber: - I'm not quite homework free, but there's a lot of homework I can just skip... Gloss it over; if I can't see it it's not there! (There's an old joke about Denial and river in Egypt but I've never got that, so...)  
  
Willows2: - Halliwells rule, I would have no fics without them. I like series, although it must be one of the many I've done... Will shut up now because I think that I'm psycho babbling so yeah... bye...  
  
Dominique1: - Lol, your review made me laugh. Lol, I like them too. Yes, grumpy people, so much like me... Oh well... Lol, thanks for reviewing.  
  
Taynna: - Well that chapter would have been all different without you, so yeah... You deserve credit. Thanks for reviewing!  
  
Random insane person: - It's ok; I forgot half the plot too... Oh, wait, I'm the author, I'm supposed to remember the plot... Meh, whatcha gonna do...?  
  
NoAlias: - I didn't abandon it, writing got pushed to a back burner... And then someone blew the gas out... So I suffocated... But yeah, someone opened the window and I REVIVED! Bet you're sorry, huh?  
  
cherry7up56: - Well seeing as I never update when I should I don't mind you being late...  
  
Thanks for all of your reviews, sorry for not updating.  
  
Twisted Flame**


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm so _tired _so therefore you must excuse anything horribly wrong with this, I'm dying of sleepiness here...**

* * *

Cries of pain punctuated the gloomy air of the cave. Another weakened sob of anguish as two bright runes burned through the darkness, focused on Wyatt. The blonde teen was pale, on his knees in front of the demon as the markings on his foe drained the very magic from him.

"You're killing him!" Piper sobbed, feeling cold metal cut into her wrist as she struggled against the manacles binding her. "Stop it!"

"He's the most powerful one here…" Phoebe said quietly, moving shackled arms towards Piper for a hug of comfort, "He can get through it…"

"Not if we let the demon drain him!" She squinted and unleashed another explosion at Drox, but the power glanced off of his chest. She felt so hopeless, he was _killing_ Wyatt… And all she could do was sit here and blast the demon with useless explosions. She gave a vicious wrench to the chains binding her to the wall, and slowly a rivulet of blood ran down her arm.

"Let us go! We'll kill you!" Piper yelled, tears glistening in her eyes.

Beside Phoebe lay Prue, still unconscious from the blast earlier in the forest. She was bound in much the same way as her mother and aunt. Paige and Megan were to the left of Prue, unbound, but in a crystal cage that was containing their orbing power. Megan, too, was still out, but Paige was up, feeling even more helpless than Piper.

"And how do you plan to do that?" Piper's eyes flicked to the corner, where the few shards of glass and damp earth were all that was left of the potions they'd brought to kill him with.

"There are more of us Halliwells out there," Phoebe said defiantly, her eyes glinting, "It's not just us,"

Piper looked behind Drox at Wyatt, who was beginning to gain some colour. She decided to keep up Phoebe's distraction.

"He'll be looking for us right now, and he'll bring others…" She said, "You'll be vanquished by the time the sun goes down,"

"Oh really… And where would this mysterious protector be?"

"Off somewhere getting ready to kick your butt," Phoebe put in, seeing Wyatt gain more strength with each passing second.

"You're mistaken, you're grasping at straws. There is no other Halliwell; you only want to distract me from _him!_" Drox turned to punctuate his statement and blasted Wyatt into the wall.

"Don't!" Piper pleaded, but the demon was deaf to her cries, turning back to Wyatt and closing his eyes as he sucked in the teen's power.

"What did you say that for?" Piper hissed at her sister, rounding on Phoebe immediately.

"Say what?"

"About another Halliwell?"

"Because it was distracting him from Wyatt…"

"Yes, but now if he thinks that's true he's gonna go and look for Chris… Chris has never been vanquishing, and he's gonna have a demon after him… Oh…" She put her head in her hands and massaged her eyes. "I don't know what to do…" She said in a surprisingly small voice.

"Chris can probably handle himself if he really had to, besides, he's a Halliwell, and it's what we were all born to do. And then there's his friend, the Olsen kid. Ben, he's a witch too… He'll do just fine, Piper. Just wait and see,"

* * *

"Ben, I found them," Chris announced as soon as Ben picked up the phone.

"You did? Where?"

"It's in the forest where they went to fight the demon, I used Aunt Paige's amethyst crystal with the necklace Mom gave me and _bing_ there they were."

"Chris, look, I'll try to get out of this dinner thing, just stay-" He was talking to the dial tone and said a word he probably shouldn't have said when they had company and was immediately banned from the dinner table in disgrace.

"Chris!"

Chris jumped, dropping the wooden spoon. "Whoa, Ben. Hey,"

"What are you doing?" The Halliwell rolled his eyes and stepped away from the pot bubbling on the stove.

"For Drox…"

"Potion?"

He opened the cabinet and grabbed a jar out. "Yeah…"

"Well before you get too involved in that would you mind kind of… collecting my body?"

"Hm?"

"My body," Ben repeated as Chris measured out toadstools, "I can't stay as a projection forever… I'm in my room,"

"Sorry, yeah, ok…" He orbed out and Ben looked sceptically at the bubbling mass in the pot, gingerly putting in Chris's toadstools and waiting for the explosion that never came.

Moments later Chris reappeared, holding his unconscious self by the arm.

"You know I always find this weird…" Chris admitted, looking at the two Bens. "I mean you're _there_ and you're _here…"_

"Spare a thought for me, who actually has to be there and here…" His head drooped as he projected back into his body.

"You put the toadstools in?"

"Yup, and it didn't even explode… Great, huh?"

"If you say so…" Chris said dryly, looking down the list, "Ok, do we have any… aconite?"

"Probably…" Ben went over to the glass-fronted cabinet that Piper kept her ingredients in, "Your Mom has everything in this kitchen."

It didn't take him long to locate the aconite, as between Piper and Paige they had the cabinets very well organized.

"This is going to take forever."

"How long did it take your Mom?"

"Not as long as it's gonna take me, I've only had the crash course version of potion-making- Argh!" Chris cried out, as adding a dusting of salt caused the potion to blow up in his face.

* * *

An hour later Chris had streaks of black smudging his face and Ben had one covering his nose. But, in the vials in front of them stood the fruits of their labours, the potion to kill Drox.

"Ok… I'm gonna call my Dad… Leo!"

Not an orbing noise could be heard, the Manor remained empty. "Dad! Dad, I need you!" Again no one came, and Chris started to get annoyed, "He always does this to me! DAD, DAMNIT, get here NOW!" Still nothing.

"Leo?" Ben asked hopefully, hoping to pacify Chris. "Hey, LEO! MR. WYATT!"

"Dad, come on, Mom's in trouble…" Chris cocked his head to one side, hearing a faint jingle. Ben, with no whitelighter powers, didn't here the sound.

"Is he jingling?"

"Yeah." Chris said through gritted teeth, "Dammit, Dad, _Wyatt_ needs you!" He bit out, putting a stress on his brother's name as a last resort. Almost immediately Leo orbed into the kitchen, his usual robes floating around him.

"Wyatt's in trouble?"

"Yes, so am I and the rest of the family as well, just so you know,"

"Is there a demon?"

"Yes, but-"

"Where? What did it do to Wyatt?"

"Nothing, but-"

"Then what, where's Wyatt then?"

"I don't know, but-"

"Well…"

"DAD, LISTEN TO ME!" Chris yelled, slamming his hands forcefully on the table; startling Leo into silence, "Thank you," He breathed, swallowing before continuing, "Mom, Wyatt and the rest of the family went on a vanquish," Leo opened his mouth to speak but caught a green glare from Chris and closed it again, "A demon called Drox. What do you know about him?"

"Only that he's able to suck the powers out of witches, and then use them to become stronger… If he's hurt your mother…"

"Well he won't have a chance; I've made the potion now I'm going to vanquish him. I just need you to-"

"Chris, wherever Wyatt is he's going to be fine, he'll vanquish Drox no problem, I'm sure of it. It doesn't need you to barge in there and risk your neck… Although it might be a way of redeeming yourself, seeing as how you didn't go to help in the first place…"

Chris made two disbelieving sounds, too angry to speak. He tried several times but couldn't force out sound.

"Look, Chris, it's great that you care but they don't need you, ok? Wyatt will do fine on his own, trust me on this one," Leo clapped a hand on his son's shoulder and orbed back Up There.

"I don't believe him!" Chris began when his Dad had gone, "I don't _believe_ him… _Wyatt will do fine on his own…_ Oh, yeah, he managed to get captured and stay captured, didn't he? Just, just… Just ARGH!" He kicked the counter, leaving a scuff mark from his sneaker and three of the cabinets imploded.

"What do we need your Dad for anyway, this is what we've been doing half our lives, this is what all that practice with the Andura demons was about… We can do this Chris…"

"The demon captured the Power of Three and my brother, Ben… Do you think we're going to stand a chance? Do you think to pathetic teenage witches are gonna vanquish him?"

"Less with the pathetic. You're Dad's obviously got his head too far up Wyatt's ass to see what's going on, so let's call Bridget and Nixa and go and see to Drox, ok?"

There was a pause in which Chris stared at the shattered glass inside the cabinets, "Ok…" He held out his hand and the cordless phone zoomed off of the cradle and into his waiting palm. "Let's do this thing, huh?"

* * *

****

**Ok, it's now tomorrow, so today I'm due in Greenwich, ****London****.**** I shall take my computer with me, but Internet access will be hovering at around 0.5 % of my usual amount, and writing will be strictly limited as well, so unfortunately probably no more posts for this weekend. I am, however, finally out of school and am on Summer vacation for the next 8 weeks so yeah… More fic to come! And I'm really tired, so I have no clue what I'm writing… Sorry if you find my responses unsatisfactory… **

**Twisted Flame**

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****

**Aldrea7: - Not many people like Bianca… Meh, oh well. I wonder why you don't like her? Is it because she was with Drew Fuller? Well duh… :P Go hug your poster or something. (Kidding, although your probably already do, lol)**

**Dominique1: - Too be honest it's too late for me to remember my name, let alone how old I made Chris… So yeah… yeah… yeah… Ok, where was I? I'm going away in… 3 weeks… As well as this weekend… heh… fun, fun, FUN… NOT…**

**NoAlias: - I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what anything means any more… I'm so damn tired… Sigh… Last day of school was… yesterday now… Sleepy and we're driving to ****London**** tomorrow… gah, why me??? Well they don't know Chris broke the window, some random football jock fell through it for all they know.**

**Claddagh Ring: - It was you that gave me the bare skeleton of a cat fight… Sorry, I'm just so tired right now…**

**flephanie: - Lol, I stole the main points off of someone else and just expanded on them… Lol, thanks.**

**Willows2: - Having only been to a US mall around five times in my life and never having seen a fight in one I have no clue how long security takes… (I'm British, btw, and therefore don't shop in American malls all that much…)**

**HollyShadow :**** - The family is found out!**

**PiperHalliwell025:**** - Thanks**


	5. Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER: This story may contain traces of nuts. The author may also contain traces of nuts, only this time as in the mental issues. Anyway this story may also contain things that don't belong to me, however unwillingly I admit it.**

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Several minutes later, after separating potion vials and the like, Chris went about 'gathering the troops', with Ben laughing the whole time.

"Do you think you can drag Bridget along?" Chris asked hopefully into the phone, pacing the kitchen and looking at the clock.

"If she's dried off, that is," Ben added, examining the potion bottles.

Chris rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Is Ben there?" Nixa questioned, hearing the voice in the background.

"Yeah, he is… Apparently he has nothing better to do than _stand behind me and listen in on my phone calls…_" Chris glared at his friend.

Ben scowled, glaring up at Chris. "Was that a hint or did you just want me to leave?"

"Heh. You're funny… What Nixa? He's standing here making faces…"

"Am not!"

"Shut up… Huh? Oh, sure…" He paused and then spoke again, slightly tentatively, "Hi?"

"Who's there?" Ben asked as Chris swatted him away. Rolling his eyes, he left the kitchen.

"Oh," A very annoyed female voice answered. "Your call waiting was Chris?" It was Bridget this time, "I'm still mad at you, by they way."

Chris smiled to himself, knowing exactly what Bridget needed. "Would a demon to kill make it all better?"

"Hm…" Bridget groaned, debating jokingly if it would be worth her while. The sound of a door closing filled the silence as she shut the rest of her house out. "I don't know, what say you, Nix?"

"Uh…" Nixa was back on her phone this time. "I think things are looking up for him…"

They were having a three-way conversation and Chris was listening to the banter, hoping for a yes. There was a slight clatter on the phone.

"Who else is there?" Bridget and Nixa asked together.

Chris turned to see Ben walk back into the kitchen with the other cordless to his ear.

"Is it Ben again?"

"Yeah, it's me again," He told them, laughing at Chris, who made another swipe at his head.

"He picked up the extension." Chris filled them in.

"Too right I did… Look, Bridget. Do you want to come hunting or not?"

"Drox has my family somewhere; I need you for this one…" Chris pleaded, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Dude, he took all of your family?" Bridget asked, "Jeez, you're gonna need firepower…" She was quiet for a minute, then in a much sweeter voice, she said: "If you orb over and ask real nice like, I'll come with you…"

"Why can I see this ending with you on you're knees and a contract for indentured servitude?" Ben wondered, hopping up onto the counter and drumming his fingers on the edge.

"And if that's Ben mumbling that, bring him too," Bridget added evilly, a smirk very evident in her voice.

Ben looked horrified and quickly hung up the extension before he could do any more damage, putting it on the kitchen island. "Couldn't keep that one to myself could I?"

Bridget laughed this time. "I'm off to polish some blades. I'll expect you guys in a few?"

"Sure, bye," Bridget hung up and it returned to a two-way call.

"It's scary how demon-killing cheers her up to no end, isn't it?" Nixa asked.

"Yes. Very, very scary… See you soon, ok?" Chris said, hanging up and turning back to Ben, who was backing away. Chris lunged for his arm and grabbed a handful of his friend's jacket. "And you are coming with me to get Bridget," Chris smirked as Ben's whine was lost in a cloud of orbs.

* * *

"We're here!" Ben announced, stepping out of the orbs into Bridget's bedroom. Being as Bridget's parents were frequently out of town, and she an only child, she got the master suite. Dark purple walls were plastered with posters of movies and rock bands, red bathroom rugs covered places on the hardwood floors and black lace curtains hung over the windows.

Bridget grinned, taking her legs off of her desk where they were kicked up. "You sound so thrilled."

"Oh I am. Getting dragged along for the ride is always fun."

"More fun than making sarcastic comments on the phone to me?"

Chris chuckled softly to himself and Ben went rather pale. "Heh… Yeah, I'm gonna shut up now."

"Are you coming?" Chris asked, looking expectantly at Bridget, who was pulling her hair back into a tight braid.

"Wait, wait, wait. Does servitude sound familiar to you?" Ben was being glared at by Chris and smiled sweetly at by Bridget. He didn't know which was worse.

Ben gulped. "Maybe?" he answered weakly.

"Well anyway…" She walked to the end of her bed where there was an open trunk full of weapons. "What's a girl to choose?"

"This is the part where you want help… matching them with your outfit, right?" Ben asked, looking doubtfully into the stash.

"Coordinating. I need help _coordinating _my outfit. Get it right Ben."

"Whatever…" He delved quickly into the trunk, hoping to get this over with fast, so he grabbed the first thing that looked promising. Pulling out an athame with a handle of mother of pearl, he waved it around slightly. "This one is the same colour as your tennis shoes, so… And this one is…" He grabbed another athame. "Black. And uh, black goes with black, right? And you seem to have a thing with the whole black Angel of Death-type deal…"

"Servitude mounting up…" Bridget warned, looking at Chris out of the corner of her eye. He was trying very hard to contain his laughter.

"Ok, ok…" Ben looked helplessly and desperately back into the trunk. "The blade is silver, you like silver, right? And I don't know what that is." He dropped it was a distasteful 'clunk' onto the carpet. "Uh… Ow! Ok, it's sharp. Huh. Ok… An axe, interesting. More silver… And - Can you actually carry anything else pointy?"

"Keep going," Bridget nodded with a deceptively sweet smile and tone.

"Ok." Ben said, kneeling down and nicking the back of his hand on something, "Great, thanks for the tetanus."

"Servitude, Benny darling."

"Not if I die of tetanus," Ben reminded her sarcastically, "Uh-huh. I don't know what that is either. Cool, you have a sword?" He unsheathed a long samurai sword and admired the colour and balance of the blade. "Hey cool, there's an engraving on the blade.

"Thank you…" She took it from him and slung it over her back.

"And because you like pointy things, have another sword," He handed her a broadsword and closed the lid of the trunk, "Happy now?"

"You are scarily good at that," Chris told him.

"Well that's great! If being a witch falls through I can make a career in the army matching guns to camouflage gear."

"Riiight. Are you ready yet?" Chris asked Bridget, hoping to get away quickly.

"Weeelllll…" Bridget said as she studied her nails, "I'm going to have to do my nails again. The polish is going to get so chipped." She waved the digits at him and he grabbed her hand so she wouldn't do it anymore.

"Ok, fine, I'll paint your damn nails." He said in frustration, glancing down at the black polish.

"And afterwards I might need to unwind with a movie or two." She added, smiling at her entertainment centre, which she had brought up from the living room while her parents were out of town.

"No!" Chris pleaded instantly. "I _know_ the sort of movies you like." Chris whined.

"Servitude?"

"I really hate you right now," Chris told a grinning Ben, who was sucking the blood from the back of his hand.

"Sorry." He apologized. "Come on I think the princess is ready now…" He missed Bridget's glare and ploughed on. "The sooner we do this, the sooner you two can watch Bridget's collection of action movies… or her S&M porn. Never can tell what you like-" Bridget was beginning to look rather annoyed. "Okay, shutting up now."

"Does servitude mean nothing to you people?" Bridget walked over to the other end of the room and into her large, walk-in closet. Ten minutes later she came out again wearing blue this time. "Sorry, looks like my weapons don't match any more…" She tossed them back in the trunk and Ben gaped wordlessly and reluctantly started again.

* * *

"I still don't get why you're wearing pink…" Nixa repeated, trudging through the trees with her three friends, "Happy, girly, way too Barbie/Pink Ranger. It's not you…"

"It's the most awkward colour she could find," Ben said, earning a smack on the shoulder, "And it wasn't even the first or second colour she changed in- Ow!"

"Stop whining…" Bridget ordered, sniggering as his foot sunk in mud. "You know you like it when I wear leather," she added, referring to the hot pink, faux leather pants she was wearing, which Nixa had bought as a joke. The beam of her flashlight swept over the ground in front of her, catching out what appeared to be a huge mud bath right in front of them.

"My pink boots are going to get all dirty." Bridget sighed. "Brown doesn't come out of pink…"

"We could throw you over," Ben suggested under his breath.

"Whatever you were muttering, I doubt it was nice. You'll be my first candidate as the human bridge then?"

"Heh. No." Rolling her eyes, she looked up at her next option.

"Chris?"

Rolling his eyes, he shrugged. "Why don't I just orb us?"

"Because you'll set off any radar that the demon might have," Nixa repeated patiently, enjoying her spectator spot of the torture. "We already said stealth was our best option." She saw Chris slump dejectedly.

"Come on, you know you want to… Oh, wait, you have to, servitude, remember?"

"Bridget..." Chris whined. She crossed her arms, pouting to humour him.

"Be nice? Because the Pink Ranger could always kick ass…" She scolded, smiling now.

"Fine, I'll carry you…" Chris said, rolling his eyes. Bridget set about un-strapping weapons so she could be carried easier and soon there was a small pile on the ground amongst the twigs and leaves.

"My hero." Bridget sprung lightly onto Chris's back and he marched dutifully through the mud for her.

"When did you become such a girly-girl, anyway?" He asked, getting out the other side to find his jeans were covered to mid-calf in mud.

"Ever since I could get away with it, of course." She explained, grinning as he scraped the glutinous substance off of his clothing.

"You know they say mud is good for the skin…" He looked up at her through a curtain of dark hair, a handful of mud in his hand; an evil grin not unlike the one Bridget usually wore on his face. Her eyes narrowed.

"You wouldn't dare…" She threatened, sounding slightly uncertain.

"Wouldn't I?"

"Touch me with that, Chris Halliwell and I swear that I'm gonna ram something sharp and pointy up your-" She broke off as an axe hit her foot. She bent down and collected it. "Perfect. Wait-"

She looked back over the mud patch, which was now glittering and smooth, frozen completely solid. Ben and Nixa skidded neatly to a stop next to the weapons they had slid across the ice.

"You…" Chris gaped at Ben in disbelief. "You could've… That reeks of personal gain, just so you know," Ben grinned apologetically.

"Yeah, well about that…" There was a loud crack as Chris raised his hand and split the ice open before using the same power to push his friend backwards, sinking him up to mid-calf as well. "Oh, thanks…"

"Not a problem." Chris nodded with a grin, extending an arm and together they heaved out of the mud.

"When you two have finished acting like five-year-olds -" Nixa broke in impatiently, no longer entertained. "We actually have a demon to kill. Have you got the potions?"

"Yes, we have the potions," Ben repeated; now scraping his own jeans. He felt in his pocket and the presence of the three vials there was comforting, wrapped in the piece of paper with a spell on if it was needed.

Suddenly, Ben was lifted off of his feet by an energy ball to the stomach. He flew through the air and hit the ground, rolling over before trying to sit up. He winced and looked down at the tattered remains of his shirt.

"Great…" He said through gritted teeth, wincing again as he stood up.

The remaining three rushed forward. "Are you ok?"

"I'll live…" He grunted. Another energy ball flew towards the group and he created a small ice shield in the air that shattered on impact with the energy ball but dissipated the glowing orb. Ben put his hand in his pocket and made a fist around the first potion vial.

"Bring it on!" Bridget yelled, unsheathing her sword with the sound that Ben loved. Apparently, her samurai sword went with pink, as well as dark colours – he couldn't see how, but apparently it did.

"Whoa! Duck!" Chris yelled and the four of them threw themselves flat on the floor as energy balls blew over their heads from all direction, setting bushes ablaze and turning tress into soggy sawdust.

"There's more than one demon?" Nixa asked, lifting her head as much as she dared and blowing hair out of her face.

"I thought there was only one!" Ben shouted, using both hands to created two ice shields.

"Apparently not!" Bridget leapt into the air, spinning and slicing two energy balls in half with her sword. The balls disappeared. Encouraged, the rest of the teenagers got up too.

"Ok." Ben suddenly felt energy leaping and crackling inside him. It had come from somewhere but he didn't know where, it was just there. He raised his hands and a blast of energy burst forth in a ring that blasted everything in his radius, turning the trees to ice and smashing his friends off of their feet. Nixa hit an iced tree, but Chris and Bridget just landed painfully on the ground a little way away.

"What the hell was that?" Chris screeched, panicked as he scrambled to his feet and helped his 'master' up with him whilst she scrabbled for a dropped athame.

"I don't know but it felt amazing!" Ben said in a dazed voice, his eyes oddly crossed. "All that power-"

And he fell to the ground unconscious.

* * *

**I saw Thunderbirds today! Yay! Lol, it's a good film if you get the chance to check it out do. It gave me lots of little bouncing plot bunnies… Hehehehehe… Ahem… Anyways thanks for all of your reviews.**

**succubus-69: - It took me a while, didn't it? I'm so sorry about that but thanks for reviewing.**

**CaliforniaChick: - Lol, thanks.**

**Dominique: - Thank you and I shall. Luckily I'm not so tired any more and was up until 0230 this morning perfecting it. Thanks for reviewing.**

**NoAlias: - Lol, thanks, I think… Alas no ass-kicking Chris yet but watch this space, look there it is… Watch it fly… There it goes…**

**MerlinHalliwell: - I guess you'll have to wait and find out =P**

**HollyShadow: - I got plenty of sleep I slept past ****midday****… Heh… Anyways thanks for reviewing and worrying about my sleep-loss lol.**

**Claddagh Ring: - Yeah, soon… More than a fortnight later, perhaps? Hm, sorry about that. Don't worry about being tired; I was ready to fall asleep over my keyboard when I was writing that last chapter… Good job I didn't, really…**

**Charmed Amber: - Lol, I made you rave… Or maybe you were like that already… Who knows lol? It sucks that you're back at school now but to be fair it's not as if it's summer for you to have a summer vacation is it? Lol, thanks for reviewing.**

**cherry7up56: - I agree, he is a jerk. Lol.**

**Chattypandagurl: - Whoa, two 'Leo is a jerk' reviews together Amazing, no? Thanks for your review.**

**Crimson Amber: - Soon… Yeah… No, the trilogy is called Meant to Live, but the 3rd part of it is called Learning to Tango. The three together are called Meant to Live, ya?**

**Queen Isa: - I live in the South of ****England****, just above the ****Isle of Wight**** so ****London**** isn't all that far away. Far enough to not get the traffic from is but close enough for things like attractions etc. thanks for reviewing and I did quite like ****Greenwich****, although it could have been slightly more exciting.**

**DoRK47: - Thanks, sorry about the delay, though.**

**princesscatie21: - Sorry it took so long but I'm afraid it did. Thanks for reviewing!**


	6. Chapter 6

"Ok, someone tell me what the HELL that was!" Bridget demanded, finally finding her dropped athame and shoving it back into her waistband, clearly annoyed. Being blasted onto her ass often made her irritable, and for good reason.

"Well I would say ask Ben..." Chris trailed off, looking at his friend. What had just happened here? How had Ben done... whatever he had done? He had never seen such a display of power from his friend before. Come to think of it, it didn't look like Ben had ever seen such a display of power from himself either, which was judged by the fact that it had knocked him clean out. "But- But yeah." He said uncertainly. Ben was down, and that was not a good thing.

"Ok- Pain..." Nixa groaned, startling Chris from his thoughts and putting a hand to the back of her head. In front of her, tiny coloured lights were darting in front of and exploding like fireworks. Watching them made her dizzy, so she took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. Behind her, the ice on the trees had started to recede, melting and shrinking into nothing as if it had never been there at all.

"Are you ok?" Chris asked, concerned. She had hit the tree pretty hard. However, He had seen her take worse hits than that. Still, he wouldn't be a good friend if he wasn't concerned.

"Did you miss the part about pain?" Nixa grumbled, standing up on wobbly legs. The lights were back with friends this time, and she felt sick again. She struggled not to vomit.

"No." Chris said, wondering why he had asked such a stupid question. Did it _look_ like she was ok? He watched her blink to clear her vision. "Can you walk?"

"I'll be fine. The sad thing is that you get used to this stuff after a while. I hate my job- Ow..." She sucked in a deep breath again; shaking her head one last time in a vain attempt to clear it. "I'll just walk it off." She finally decided, not knowing if she was capable of that right now. She changed the subject. "What was that, by the way?" She winced, hoping no one noticed. It didn't look like they had.

"Ben..." Chris paused, struggling for more words. "And that's all I have so far." He eventually admitted, grabbing Nixa's elbow as she wobbled again and helping her. To Nixa this was chivalrous; to Bridget, this would have been sexism.

'_What, you think when a girl hits a wall she can't walk without a guy on her arm?' _Was often heard if she was offered any aid in standing after a fight. Chris smiled slightly. It was a bold faced lie on her part of course.

"Chris? You're standing there grinning, are you feeling ok?" Bridget waved a hand in front of his face, blurring the fingers into around twice her usual number.

"Huh, what? Yeah, sorry. My mind wandered and kinda forgot to come back." He said sheepishly, bringing his mind back to earth with a solid 'bump'. It would do no good to have his thinking power somewhere else right now.

"I thought that happened a long time ago." Bridget deadpanned. Chris pulled a face at her and she turned to look at Ben with a slight frown on her face.

"Thanks a lot."

Bridget ignored that response. "I vote we go poke him until he wakes up." She said chirpily, walking over to the spot where her friend lay and rolling him over so he was on his back.

Suddenly, the air above Ben became solid and, in the midst of wavering lines, a demon appeared and backhanded her across the face. She stumbled backwards, tasting blood in her mouth but reaching for the athame, withdrawing and throwing it at her foe. It passed through his shimmer and embedded itself in a tree, splitting the trunk until it oozed sap. They looked at the spot where he had been and realized that Ben was gone too.

**Last One Standing**

"Wyatt, Honey... Wyatt, wake up, Sweetie... Please?" Piper pleaded, her voice getting louder and more desperate as gentle cajoling failed. Why was he still asleep - had the demon done permanent damage to her baby?

"Piper, let him sleep, he needs the energy." Phoebe soothed, rubbing her sister's back gently with the clink of iron metal links. If anything Wyatt needed to sleep just to take a little bit longer of Drox draining him. Phoebe was surprised her nephew lasted this long, but that was not something she wanted to tell Piper.

"But-" Piper said, still protesting. If only he could wake up, then he might have a chance to defend himself against what was coming. Or, even better, orb them all out of here and safely back to the Manor. She was such a bad mother, such a bad oldest sister, letting them all come out here like this without properly knowing what could happen.

Prue would have been more level-headed, she thought bitterly. Maybe she would have played it cool. Piper sighed inwardly, knowing that an inferiority complex to a much-loved but long-dead sister was sad at best.

"She's right, Piper. He'll wake up when he can." Paige added, looking up from her sleeping daughter. Megan was breathing slowly and rhythmically, just as if she were only sleeping and not in some kind of magic trance. The Charmed Ones, who had been blasted with his stuff all of their Wiccan lives, apparently had built up more of a resistance to this that the kids. Paige made a mental note never to bring her daughter again.

She watched her niece, Prue, who had started to stir not long ago, but she hadn't woken up yet either. She was just going to sleep on and on. It was like some pathetic fairy tale, only this one was very real. She smiled at her daughter, flicking blonde hair off of her nose tenderly. Yes, Megan's demon-hunting days were over, most definitely. It wasn't right to expose her to this.

Phoebe was summing up the situation still, working it over and over and seeing if she could see any possible flaws in the demons plan, something, _anything_ that could work towards their advantage. There was one thing and one thing only that her mind kept coming back to, the one little ray of hope. "Do you think Chris is coming?" The middle sister asked softly after a while, voicing her brief, fluttering faith for the first time. She spoke carefully, as if just asking the question could dampen the flame.

"It's not like his Dad's coming any time soon." Piper said bitterly, having torn her throat out calling Leo's name only for him to fail to materialize. "Chris will come, I know that. He's a Halliwell, and it's just- I don't know if he can do it, you guys. I should have let him vanquish demons before, it's all he wanted to do, and I didn't even let him practice and now... Well we're all stuck in this situation and a completely untrained teenager is out only hope. I love him, I really do, but I don't think my love is in any condition to be able to help him now. I just didn't want to hurt my baby. Or even get him hurt..."

"Aw, Piper. Chris is tough, we know that already." Paige said. Chris survived everything that was thrown at him by Life and more, they had seen proof of that in everything he had ever done.

"Yeah. Yes we do, don't we?" Piper settled back against the wall, somewhat comforted. Paige was right, Chris was a good kid, and on top of that a witch with the powers of the Halliwells right behind him. "Chris will- Chris!"

She had cut herself off, seeing a long-haired brunette head slung over Drox's shoulder. "So much for being tough." Piper hissed through gritted teeth. Her heart sinking she faced the worse. Her son was captured and that made all of the family.

"Wait," Paige said suspiciously, catching sight of part of the face. "Piper, that's-" The youngest sister began, being the only member of the Halliwell sisters who currently didn't require glasses. She was cut off by Drox.

"Is this your saviour? The last of the Halliwell witches?" Drox dug deep into the pockets of the teen's jacket and pulled out potion vials and the spell, throwing the vials at the ground where he had smashed the rest of them and forcing the paper to burst into flames, dropping the last pieces of ash on top of the unconscious form. As the powdery grey substance fell Piper felt her hope and pride fall with it. This was it.

Drox twisted a sadistic smile onto his face. He was finally going to do what no demon had been able to do so far – kill the Halliwells and gain the powers of the twice-blessed witch, using them to become the ruler of the Underworld.

He had won, they had lost.

"I gave him some power from his brother. This is his brother, right? Not a cousin?" He received no answer. Piper was too angry to speak and Phoebe felt her chest being crushed as the hope inside her heart died. Paige just said nothing, willing her sisters to look at her so she could at least try and relay a message to them.

"No matter, when I have him enough power he just collapsed." He laughed, kicking his captive in the stomach. "Might wanna work on that, especially as you're meant to be all-powerful." As he spoke he levitated the kid flipped him over in midair, suddenly throwing him into the wall. Piper distinctly heard something snap and she glared daggers at Drox.

It wasn't until Drox had thrown Ben into the wall beside Phoebe that anyone else but Paige noticed that Drox hadn't in fact kidnapped Chris, but one of his friends.

Relief immediately washed over Piper, followed by waves of guilt for thinking such a thing. Phoebe's hope was rekindled again. Her nephew was still coming. Her smart nephew was coming with reinforcements and had plied them all with potions. He thought like a true witch.

Drox gestured and sent chains coiling and slinking their way up Ben's arms, pinning him to the wall, forcing them tighter out of glee. "Oh, this _is _a sorry sight. Nearly time so say bye-bye to the Halliwells?" He turned back to Wyatt, who groaned slightly as Drox began to suck the power from him again, barely able to make the noise let along fight off the attack.

"Why has he got him?" Piper hissed, looking at the unconscious Ben. "I really don't want to explain to his mother that we nearly got him _killed_." It was bad enough she had put her own children in danger.

"See, I told you Chris was tough. He's still out there." Paige said, her face lighting up. "Chris is coming. Yup, he takes after his Aunt Paige, don't you know."

**Last one Standing**

"We lost Ben. Great, we lost Ben..." Nixa muttered, snapping a path through the undergrowth and snagging her clothes and skin on brambles and twigs. There was so much blood on her hands that she couldn't see where one cut ended and the next one began.

"Calm down, we can rescue him when we rescue my Mom and the rest of the family." Chris reassured her, stumbling over something hidden in the dark. The one flashlight that hadn't been broken in Drox's attack was dimming with every step they took. Chris smacked it against is palm and the bulb flared brighter for a split second before dimming again.

"Ok, stand back." Bridget announced, pushing to the front of the group, unsheathing her sword and beginning to slice a track through the brambles with it.

It barely worked, the sword not designed for hacking such tough stalks and thorns but she managed to wrench a few of the plants up by the roots as she marched dutifully onwards.

"This sucks, you know that?" She said, frustration causing her to get her sword caught in the woody stems. Bridget gave an over-large wrench and finally cleared her way through the thicket.

"I think this is it." Nixa said, looking into the dark mouth of the cave with niggling apprehension. She clutched the hilts of two athames tighter in her hand and fought away the fear.

"Well come on!" Bridget, ever reckless, was already striding towards the cave, ready for a fight.

"Whoa, wait!" Chris called suddenly and she spun on her heel, looking at him quizzically. "I mean, how do we know this is the right place? You don't know what's in there."

"Chris, it's a cave in the middle of a huge forest surrounded by a wall of brambles. I have the cuts to prove this. If it's not where the demon is hiding out then what's the worse that could happen? A big old grizzly bear pops out because I stopped him hibernating?"

Bridget had a point. She often had a point when she was really sure about something. Ok, so her points oozed sarcasm, but that was irrelevant. What really mattered is that she was probably most definitely right.

"Ok, but if a bear does jump on you, don't blame me."

"I won't. Now... Weapons at the ready and let's all kick some ass?" Bridget was itching to be off; all she wanted to do was to do her job.

"Ok, you and Nixa distract Drox long enough for me to get my family untied or whatever and orb them away. Just distraction, not full-scale fighting until he hasn't got anyone to use as a hostage, ok?"

"Right." Bridget nodded once and turned back to the cave, marching through the gloom fearlessly.

"Good luck." Nixa and Chris said at the same time. Grinning, Nixa made her way in after Bridget.

Chris waited, counting to prevent himself from rushing in there. When he got to one-twenty, he strode in, keeping one hand around the vials in his pocket. He had given one each to Bridget and Nixa, but Bridget at least would prefer running the demon through with a blade instead of using the potion.

As soon as he entered, he saw Bridget and Nixa dodging energy balls, keeping Drox's eyes on them and off of Chris's rescue attempt. He was immediately grateful but he wished that they'd provoked him to use a less deadly form of attack than energy balls. He winced, seeing one crackling orb blow past Nixa's side, barely missing her. He hoped they were ok; he didn't want his plan to get them hurt...

Chris held out his hand and a crystal shot across the floor into his palm. He bit his tongue to stop himself swearing and dropped the incredibly hot lump of white stone to the ground.

"Chris!" The newly-awakened Megan was the first to spot her cousin, but Chris made frantic gestures to keep her quiet. His Aunt Paige turned as soon as her daughter had shouted and so did Prue.

Phoebe was admiring the Hunters' skills with martial arts, mesmerized by the ducking and weaving and wishing she could snip twenty years off of her age and regain some of that old flexibility she used to have.

Piper, however, was watching behind half closed eyes, squealing every time an energy ball nearly found its target. This was so _dangerous!_ What if he hit one of them? What would she tell their parents? Piper squeaked again, but turned as she felt Prue slapping her arm.

"Aunt Piper." She jerked her head in the direction of Chris and Piper looked around to see her son. He made the same frantic shushing gestures he had used on Megan as she opened her mouth and she shut it again, narrowing her eyes at her son's cheek.

He gave a helpless shrug, forcing himself to focus on the task in hand and not on the fact that two of his friends were risking their lives for him. He gestured slowly and the chains binding Prue to the wall and they clinked together lethargically. He made an angry noise in the back of his throat and, checking the demon was still fully occupied, flicked his wrist and busted the lock clean off. Prue quickly shook them off and, managing to crawl and rub her wrists at the same time without falling on her face, she slowly made her way on all fours to her cousin and Aunt Paige.

In a swirl of orbs, Piper, Phoebe and the unconscious Ben dissolved and reappeared in front of Paige, who wanted nothing more than a quick get away. All she wanted to do was get out of here and not have to come back, and having Chris bust the chains was pointless when she could just orb everyone out of their restraints.

The orbing immediately set off alarm bells in Drox's head and he turned, catching Bridget in the stomach with his arm and throwing her into the wall. She grunted and fell to the floor, her sword clanking down moments after her.

"Aunt Paige, GO!" Chris yelled, still hidden as an energy ball blazed towards the group.

"What about you? And Wyatt?" Piper said as Megan ducked under the energy ball. "You are not staying here. Don't even think I'd let you."

"We're gonna be fine, Mom, I'll orb us home." He flashed his mother the vials of potion in his pocket and the sight comforted her somewhat but not nearly enough to silence her mothering instincts.

"Chris you get here right now and have your ass orbed straight home or-" Paige squeaked with fear as en energy ball headed towards her and without thinking, Phoebe picked up on it and threw her half-sister's natural reaction into play –orbing. They all disappeared.

Chris breathed a sigh of relief. That made them all much less of targets. Vanishing tended to do that to people. He knew Ben would be annoyed at him for letting him miss out on finally nailing the demon, but he was unconscious, what was Chris meant to do?

All he had to do was kill the demon and find his brother, then orb all four of them back to the Manor. Chris paused, running the plan through his head. What sounded wrong there? He smiled slightly, thinking what Bridget would say: It was too simple.

She may be right, but the simplest of plans were often the best, right? He stood up, watching as Drox grabbed Bridget's sword and crumbled the blade into silver dust. Her mouth dropped to the floor and the useless hilt followed a second after as she delved into her boot and pulled out an athame.

"You stupid little _bitch_." He spat. "I had the Halliwells right here, right where I wanted them. He punched her in the jaw and, while she was still reeling, kicked her into the stomach, the force of the blows landing enough to knock her to the floor, gasping for breath.

Nixa pulled out her potion and held it at shoulder height, a look of hate running across her features. He grinned at her, opening his arms wide to expose his chest. Nixa, having been in this game far too long for her liking, was not distracted and did not lower the potion.

"I thought I'd seen you somewhere. You were in the forest, weren't you? Seeking out the Halliwells?"

"So what?" Bridget asked, finally able to suck in enough air to speak up. She could see Chris creeping up behind Drox, potion at the ready to throw. If it was her job to keep him talking to she could see the sucker burn then so be it.

"So you're well plied with potions, then? From the witch creeping up behind me?"

It took too long for Chris to register what the demon meant, and he dropped both of the vials as Drox turned and hit him in the chest with an energy ball. He hit the floor after flying in an arc, grunting on impact.

"Don't try to sneak up on me." Chris felt as if someone had reached into his chest and was squeezing his heart and crushing his lungs, forcing him to expel the air and not allowing him to take anymore in. "You can't win."

Chris felt himself weaken, and he realized that Drox must have been draining his powers. He struggled harder to draw a breath.

"Oh- Oh yes, this one's definitely a Halliwell... I can feel all that family bloodline shit..."

"You're killing him!" Bridget yelled, allowing panic to flare up in her dark eyes. She quickly forced it away, snatching one of Nixa's steel daggers and using two swipes of them to try and stop Drox. One found his shoulder but the one that should have pierced his skull crumbled before her eyes.

She threw that hilt to the floor in anger, but not before twisting the blade lodged in his body for maximum damage and tearing it out, drawing his attention away from Chris. She punched him in the face and he staggered, countering with an elbow in her nose. She grunted in pain and went down, blood spurting from her nostrils, seeing Nixa launch herself into the air and kick him under the chin.

Nixa threw her potion but it curved neatly and into a waiting hand. Chris dived for the potions he had dropped and Bridget thrust her hand into her pocket but they all shot towards the same point.

"Wyatt?" Chris said in disbelief, seeing his brother clutching the potions. "Wyatt, we need those to kill him with." Chris said uncertainly, getting up off of the floor. What was going on, was Wyatt _helping_ this demon?

"What do you want to kill him for?"

"Wyatt? Uh, you in there? He's a demon, remember?"

"He's got my powers, Chris." Wyatt stepped out of the shadows and Chris had never seen him so drained, but still his brother stood steady, still gripping their potions in his hand.

"You want them back? Come and get them, then. Shall we get rid of these pests first?" Drox knew he stood a much better chance of winning with only a nearly-drained Wyatt to fight against. All he had to do was take the tiniest amount of power and the witch-whitelighter would collapse.

"He's right, Chris. Stay out of this, will you?"

"Wyatt, I'm not going to let you- Hey!" His brother had orbed the crystal cage around him, the same one that had been used on his aunt and cousin at Chris's first words of protest. Anger immediately bubbled to the surface; Wyatt knew how much he hated being trapped like this. "Wyatt, this isn't you, what's going on?"

"He's got my powers, Chris. We're going to settle this score."

"Chris is right, Wyatt, this is nuts! Just vanquish him!" Bridget said, dabbing at her nose gingerly with the back of her hand.

"Look, I don't actually remember who you are so just stay out of this, ok? Both of you." Bridget opened her mouth to protest but Wyatt pulled in the last reserves of his strength and waved his hand at them, orbing them both out.

"What did you do to them?" Chris demanded, panic tingeing his voice. What was wrong with his brother, why was he acting like this? Where had he just orbed Bridget and Nixa to? Had the demon somehow done this? A shock zapped through his body as he got too close to the walls of his prison and he was knocked to the floor.

"They're at the manor. They were getting in the way."

It was hard for Chris to second-guess the state of his brother's mind right now. All he could work out was that Wyatt wasn't thinking too clearly right now. He tried again, but confusion clouded his brain with poor judgement.

"Don't hurt him." Chris pleaded with Drox, seeing Wyatt sway with light-headedness.

"Demons don't have a better nature to appeal to, I'm afraid." Faster than Wyatt could react, Drox grabbed for the potions in Wyatt's hand. Chris noticed something just before Drox knew he'd made his last and fatal mistake.

There was an odd smirk on Wyatt's face and the demon gasped. Wyatt flicked his eyebrows up and then down again, looking at Drox's chest where his hand was embedded up to his wrist. Chris watched his brother's arm muscles contract as Wyatt squeezed.

Dark purple orbs started travelling up Wyatt's arm and the blonde closed his eyes, relishing the rush of power back into his body. It was unbelievable how awful being powerless could make you. Wyatt suddenly felt pity for all of those mortal innocents, the ones that had nothing. He was a witch and he now had all of this to bend to his command.

"Wyatt, that's enough. That's not all yours!" Chris said, his voice shaking slightly. Wyatt waved a hand and the cage blasted him back down again, effectively silencing his brother and all of his good versus evil doubts.

Slowly the orbs faded and Wyatt twisted his arm violently, causing Drox to scream in agony before exploding outwards in a ring of fire that Chris shielded his eyes from.

When the flames had faded everything, including Wyatt, had gone.

**Last One Standing**

**Heh, sorry about the new page breaks, people, I got fed up with not allowing me to use my usual ten asterisks and then having to put just a line in, which is really, really time consuming. Anyways sorry for the delay and may thanks to:**

**Pixie Wildfire: - Ok, but only because the Pink Ranger scares me. Thanks for reviewing and beta-ing, hun.**

**Ashlee: - Lol, thanks.**

**Claddagh Ring: - Well I updated slightly later than expected... Heh... Anyways I hope this chapter answers some of your questions and if it doesn't then ask the questions, lol, and I shall answer them. Thanks for reviewing.**

**Erica: - Comedy! Lol, someone told me I should write a sitcom parody the other day... Heh, no thanks. Thanks for your review anyways.**

**cherry7up56: - They'd better... Wait, they did... Well Wyatt did... Heh anyways I'll stop babbling now and say thanks.**

**Jessie: - Ok, soon was a no... I try to be quick but it doesn't always work out that way...**

**Rafiki: - Yeah I guess I could make him stand up for himself a little bit, lol. Thanks for your review.**

**DoRK47: - Lol, thanks for the enthusiasm.**

**Kiseki-no-neko: - Yes, the trilogy title is _borrowed_ from Switchfoot, I didn't steal it. You can't prove it =P Just kidding. Heh, I need to kill the family, but not in this fic. I have other fics to do that in... Heh, I like my dentist, he's nice to me... Our old one used to give out candy afterwards... But that was odd because he's a dentist... Anyways we have this one now.**

**Crimson Amber: - Yeah, about that update... It got lost in the mail... It got lost on the Internet :: Shakes fist at the Internet ::**

**Stony Angel: - Yay, fun! Heh, ignore me.**

**Aldrea7: - Can I saw ew here? Really, really big ew...**

**Queen Isa: - Thanks a lot, I liked your review.**

**Charmed Amber: - Lol, I know, it sucked. Lol, yes, Alex is back. I forgot you'd been a reviewer since way back there when I sucked even more than I do now. I need to get a bigger vocabulary; I've just used 'sucked' three times in three lines. Heh. --**

**Chattypandagurl: - Many, many people liked that scene; I liked writing it, lol. Thanks for your review.**

**princesscatie21: - Soon, hey? My excuse is that it got lost on the Internet. I posted it ages before now, honest!**

**As Always: - Thanks a lot.**


	7. Chapter 7

Chris gritted his teeth, loosing any façade of patience that he had tried to use before. "Wyatt! Get back here now!" He paused, letting his words echo and die. "Wyatt, this isn't funny!" He yelled, staring at the rock ceiling of the cave. His throat hurt from shouting for his brother and when Wyatt didn't reply, he angrily pounded the floor with his fist.

His shoulder protested immediately with a shooting pain up his neck from where he had hit the floor. As soon as he winced, he could feel some of his ribs, jealous of the time his shoulder was getting, start up their own rally to voice their objection and he took deep, shaky breaths to force himself to calm down.

He looked down at the cuts on his hand and moodily picked at a scab. He was pissed off and frustrated and... UGH! He made a sudden movement and tore the rust red mark off accidentally and fought the urge to punch the floor again, knowing it would only hurt his shoulder.

Why had Wyatt left him there? What was he thinking when he's disappeared after vanquishing Drox? Chris felt bitter pain that his family had not come to help him out of this mess. They probably hadn't even noticed he wasn't there; they would be too busy with Wyatt, helping his brother get his powers back or something like that.

Questions bounced around in his mind, all of them remaining unanswered. The only thing he could think of was that they were helping Wyatt get his powers back and then rescuing him would come later.

He would have thought that Nixa, Bridget and Ben might have come looking, though. Maybe forced them to come and find him. He knew that they couldn't get here without orbing because he'd been the one to orb them into the forest in the first place; but surely they could get someone to find him? When he didn't come back, they could have got Paige to come after him but they hadn't.

It was like they had forgotten him or didn't care. He grabbed a stone and threw it at the cage, not feeling as good as he had hoped a sudden outburst of anger would make him feel. Sparks flew in bright orange flecks and Chris was forced to hastily brush them off of the sleeve of his jacket. Frustration overwhelmed him and he slammed his hand down on the floor again, pains jangling up the nerves in his wrist. He hated being encaged like this, was that why Wyatt had done it? Was his brother playing some kind of mind game with him?

"WYATT! I know you can hear me!" Chris yelled again. His voice deadened, bouncing off of the rock walls only a couple of times before fading. He knew Wyatt could hear anyone calling him from anywhere in the world.

Unless... unless he'd gone to the Underworld. It was then that his whitelighter half became pretty much useless, save for the orbing. The only reason Wyatt would have gone to the Underworld was to vanquish demons and after having his powers drained, Chris didn't know if his brother was up to that.

He closed his eyes, putting enough pressure on them with the heels of his hands to make him see dots, trying to rub away the picture in his mind's eye of Wyatt plunging his hand into Drox's chest, squeezing the life out of him and then killing him, just as the demon had nearly done to him. Chris frowned; too busy planning an escape to work out the irony in that.

The witch-whitelighter forced himself to breathe and calm down again. This was just Wyatt being an idiot, teasing him like he had been doing all of his life. Just a prank gone wrong, that's all it was...

So why didn't that comfort him? He should be feeling better if all this was Wyatt pulling a prank on him that had gone wrong but there was a weird feeling at the top of his spine that was creeping its way down in a series of icy tingles, a feeling he got when something was up. Or maybe he was just cold. It was still dark outside and the rock seemed to be oozing cold at him, and the metallic plink, plink, plink of dripping water was setting him on edge.

Chris zipped his jacket up to his neck and huddled down into it. Sitting here doing nothing without any adrenaline pumping was making him cold, and he had no desire to get the warm rush that shocking himself on his cage made so he tucked his hands up his sleeves and hugged his knees to his chest, hoping someone would find him soon.

_**Last One Standing**_

"Piper, you're going to wear yourself into the basement," Paige joked, trying to relieve some of the tension through humour. But the fact remained that her own kid was in bed and asleep after last night and Chris and Wyatt hadn't yet come home. Megan was safe while Chris and Wyatt were still missing, and she knew that Piper was tearing herself up with worrying.

"If I could, I would have done already." Piper snapped, turning sharply on her heel and pacing across the conservatory floor again. The pacing was doing nothing to calm her nerves and all she wanted to do was get some herbal tea and maybe sleep, but she knew she couldn't, not until her children were safely in their rooms. Her nerves were on edge and she bit on a nail, eventually tearing it off.

Phoebe was chewing on her bottom lip and was sitting in one of the wicker chairs with her legs crossed, wiggling her foot and looking at her watch at periodic intervals. It was bad enough having her own fears about her nephews, let alone Piper and Paige's as well coming to her through empathy.

"Is he ok?" Piper asked eventually, forcing herself to stop pacing and look at Nixa, who was trying to bring Ben round with a damp washcloth. She had to mother _someone_ right now or she was going to explode.

Chris was so grounded when he got back, staying away this long and scaring her this much. A nasty voice in the back of her skull reminded her _'If he got back.'_ She immediately forced all negative thoughts away, it would do her no good to think like that and here she was, already wondering if she would ever see either of her kids alive again. Piper quickly berated herself and looked at Nixa and at Ben, who had water running down the side of his face.

Nixa saw that the liquid was about to soak into the couch cushions and rubbed it away apologetically with her sleeve before answering, "He'll wake up soon, his eyelids are twitching."

"Ok..." Piper pulled her hair back and twisted as if she were about to put it in a French twist before letting it fall around her shoulder again and exhaling deeply. "Paige, orb to that damn cave."

"What?"

"That sparkling blue thing you do? Do it and orb us to that cave, the one where we left Chris," Piper said, motioning for her sisters to get up.

"Piper, sweetie, we don't have any potions or anything to kill him with... other than what Chris made..." Phoebe said, hesitating as she tried to be tactful while pointing out the obvious.

When loved ones were in danger, Piper got illogical, that was the way it was. She had to try and be the level-headed one, the one to cool the hot-headedness down before a plan wrought from irrationality got someone hurt. She allowed herself a small smile, this middle-sister gig she had was getting easier with every passing day.

"Well we can make a Power of Three spell. We can- I don't know! We've just got to go there!" Piper said, stamping her foot and running her fingers through her hair.

"What about the kids?"

Piper paused and licked her lips before rather hopefully looking around the room. Bridget saw that the Charmed One was trying to catch her eye and immediately became interested in the colours on the stained glass window, studying each pane. Piper felt immediately guilty at trying to force one of the two teenagers into babysitting her nieces while they went orbing off, and she could tell that Bridget was none too keen on the idea either.

Nixa looked at Bridget and frowned slightly before allowing Piper to catch her own eye. Bridget wouldn't even have to _do_ anything, just stay here while they went and found Chris.

"Could... Would you mind...?"

"Are you going to find Chris?" Nixa asked. If they were then sitting here with the Halliwell children that weren't missing was no huge thing. If it meant that it saved Chris then who cared?

"We're going to try."

"Then I'll watch out for the kids. I've got a sister at home."

"Thanks. Do me one favour, though, ok?" Paige said, shrugging on her jacket and flipping her hair out of the collar. "Don't call Megan a kid to her face."

Nixa smiled. "I'll remember that."

"There's..." Piper paused to think. "There's probably something in the fridge, ok?" She was sure that there would be something there, there always was, even if she hadn't been shopping in a while.

"Right." Bridget said, her hands resting where the pockets on her jeans would normally be.

"Thank you." Phoebe said quickly as Paige orbed them away.

As soon as they were gone Bridget slumped down into an armchair and began to pick her nails moodily. "Why are we looking after their kids?"

"Because if we don't then they can't go and find Chris. Plus they're not really kids – they're only a little bit younger than us." Bridget looked unconvinced. "And we can't exactly leave until Ben wakes up anyway, so..." She trailed off, trying to gauge from Bridget's reaction how well this had been taken.

"But what if something happens to them? What if Drox comes for them and we can't protect them? They won't forgive us, Nix. It's like someone's pet. As soon as you look after someone's pet it dies and they never forgive you."

"They're not hamsters-" Nixa began her protest but saw that there was nothing she could do to change Bridget's mind short of revving up a bright yellow bulldozer. She sighed instead and moistened the cloth more.

Bridget was still looking at her nails. "I chipped the polish... And scratched it there..." She mumbled. Nixa looked but she was pretty sure that Bridget was talking to herself.

There was a movement behind her and Nixa turned suddenly, her senses suddenly so acute they screamed. There was nothing there and when she looked down Ben was looking straight back up at her, his forehead creased into a frown.

"What's wrong?" He murmured as she snatched the cloth off of his head and slapped his chest with it.

"You scared me. I thought you had come to kill us!"

Ben cocked an eyebrow at her and slowly sat up, feeling the blood pounding in his ears. He screwed his eyes shut until it passed and sat up some more until he was propped up against the arm of the couch.

"Are you feeling better now?"

"Ow... Yes, sorta... Where are we? And where is everyone?"

Nixa looked at Bridget, who was using the point of an athame to dig dirt out from under her nails and looking absorbed in the task. Whether she actually was or just didn't want to explain, Nixa didn't know.

"Well what's the last thing you remember?" The blonde said at last, thinking it would be quicker to fill in the blanks rather than recite the whole story over.

Ben closed his eyes; his memories were uncertain and blurred. The last thing he could remember with any clarity was the mud puddle. "That mud patch that I froze over," he said finally, looking up at her and wanting her to continue.

"Well after that we got attacked by this demon," Nixa began. "And... you just passed out. And the demon, Drox, thought you were Chris and took you to his cave-"

"It's always a cave, isn't it?" Bridget interrupted, looking up from her hands. "They never hang out at the chocolate factory, of the pillow factory or anywhere vaguely nice; it's always the sewers or a cave..."

"There was that demon in that penthouse..." Nixa reminded her.

"Wait, where was that?" Ben asked quickly, seeing that Bridget was about to speak and realizing that it would be very hard to question them if they got a conversation stared

"Oh, you didn't come." Nixa told him.

"Well, yeah... One..." Nixa opened her mouth again, perhaps to begin disproving her friend's theory again but Ben cut in.

"Whoa, wait, penthouse? What penthouse? You do vanquishes by yourselves? Without us?"

Bridget snorted. "Yeah, we don't tell you everything, Benny boy." She sat back on her chair, grinning at him scowling at the name. "Come on, lighten up! It wasn't all that long ago that you orbed off with Chris without us. Do Andura demons sound familiar?"

"So where's Chris?" Ben asked, looking around the room, knowing that his subject change was about as smooth as

"Uh..." Nixa looked at Bridget again but she just shrugged. Nixa decided that she was bring deliberately annoying now and admonished her with a glare, which was wasted because Bridget was digging at her nails again.

"The demon got him, didn't he?"

"Wyatt was nuts. He orbed us out of the cave and we didn't see what happened to him, or Chris, or the demon." Nixa told him apologetically, as if it was her fault.

Ben got up suddenly, relieved that there was no pain or dizziness. Nixa tried to get him to lie back down but he wouldn't, and then got up off of the seat.

"So why aren't you looking for him?" He demanded, confusion etched on his face. Why were they sat here when Chris was missing?

"Because the Charmed Ones just orbed off to do that," Bridget said, setting down her dagger. "What's wrong with you?"

Ben paused. "You know what? I don't know what's wrong with me. I just wanna be _doing_ something." Nixa saw him deflating and he sighed, sitting back down.

"Look, he's our friend and he's missing, right?" Bridget said. "It's natural that you want to do something, but the Charmed Ones have gone to kick ass, so how are we gonna compare to that? I don't even have all the weapons I went with. Just chill and let them do their job."

Ben put his head in his hands, rubbing the prickles of sleep from his eyes. "You're right..." He mumbled, his head suddenly dropping.

"Did he just go unconscious again?" Bridget asked, fingering the steel blade.

"I don't know..." Nixa said slowly, her voice tinged with suspicion, fully aware that the sleeping teen in front of her could project at will. "I don't know."

_**Last One Standing**_

"Ben?" Chris asked before the red blur had fully materialized. Of course it was - how many witches did he know that could astral project? Scrap that, how many witches did he know period?

"That's me."

"What are you doing here?" Chris asked, shifting closer to the edge of the cage, casting wary eyes at the crackling energy lest he get shocked again.

"Saving you?" Ben supplied as his friend struggled to stand on a foot full of pins and needles.

"Yeah... But where's my Mom and my aunts? Did they not bother or something?" Chris winced slightly and the blood flooded back through his ankle. He looked at Ben, wanting his answer. What _had _happened to his family?

"They went to look for you. They haven't come here?" Ben asked, and Chris could tell by his surprise that it was genuine. He looked confused as well.

"No..." Chris rubbed his eyes. "Wyatt's gone completely nuts. He put me in here and orbed Bridget and Nixa away and then... I don't know I _think_ sucked the power out of the demon before disappearing... But I really, really hope he didn't go that far... Maybe they found him and he needs more help then me... He was pretty off the rails..."

That fitted, Chris thought. If Wyatt was hurt or something else was wrong with him then they would go to him first, especially if they knew that Chris wasn't in direct danger.

Ben made a non-committing noise and kicked away the crystals. They went skittering across the floor and Chris rolled his eyes, knowing that Ben had never been Wyatt's number one fan. He said that it wasn't his fault, and that Wyatt didn't like him, but Chris knew that if they just _tried_ it would work out between them. His brother was cool, and he wished Ben could see that.

"You ok to orb?" Chris stood up, ignoring most of his muscles cramping as he stretched. When he nodded Ben disappeared in the same blur that he arrived in.

Out of the cage the air tasted different. He knew it was stupid but it was different when he was caught, like the air was stale or something. Now he was free he appreciated it so much, and he grinned as he orbed out, relishing his particles stretching out into thousands of shining blue orbs as he left the cave, hoping never to come back.

_**Last One Standing**_

**Just the epilogue left now, where all the loose ends will be tied into one big knot. Thanks for all your reviews last chapter.**

**Pixie Wildfire: - Happy beta is good... Very good...**

**NoAlias: - Heh, sarcasm. Yeah, that's how I get through my life. It makes me own little tiny world spin round. Thanks for your review and Wyatt and evil? Psst, Wyatt's evil...**

**princesscatie21: - Interesting... Lol, thanks for reviewing.**

**Stony Angel: - Thanks. The way it's going it looks like it will expand into more of a season than a series. These characters attack me with vicious plot bunnies... All of which have big teeth...**

**As Always: - We shall see... We shall see... Heh, yeah... Thanks for reviewing.**

**Crimson Amber: - Drox is dead... Wyatt? Well he's a mystery. Thanks for your review.**

**Claddagh Ring: - If we're on the topic on answered questions has yours been answered now? Heh. Thanks for reviewing.**

**Zoned-out: - Nuh-uh, not the end. Well... Nearly but not quite.**

**Charmed Amber: - He should be fighting but I hate the family I created in this fic... That is why there is a different one in Flames, and Alex is not in this fic... **

**Deranged black kitten of doom: - No, not the end. I'm not that evil. Well, sometimes. Heh.**


	8. Epilogue

The tennis ball thunked against the ceiling and fell back down, smacking into the palm throwing it before being tossed back up again. Chris was laying spread eagled on the bed, one of his hands resting behind his head as the other continued bouncing the ball off of the ceiling, the rhythm helping with his thinking.

Across the room, Ben sat cross-legged on a battered armchair that was so accustomed to him sitting on it that it had become stuck in his shape and hadn't moved back for many years now.

His oldest brother, Joel, slept in the room across the hall when he was home from college, and Ben had rescued the chair from being thrown out by his brother after Joel got something 'more comfortable'. What that something was Ben had never found out, but took the chair anyway.

Next to his brother's bedroom was another room, shared by his other older brothers, Matt and Jake. He knew that they had their eyes on his room, but, because they were born only eleven months apart, they'd been sharing all their lives. It wasn't as if Ben would move in with any of his brothers willingly anyway. Being the youngest of four automatically meant he was treated like a small kid all of the time, and his brothers patronized him constantly to get a kick out of his anger, something they at least found amusing.

It had been funny to them until they suddenly found themselves pulling on iced boxers in the mornings, or waking to find their eyelids frozen shut. Then it was back to amusement when Ben would get reprimanded for using his powers.

Ben watched Chris, trying to work out what it was he was preoccupied with. Chris had been throwing and catching that ball for about half an hour now, and speaking very little.

Chris took a blocking potion for his empath powers, meaning he couldn't be read by another empath, but over the ten years he had had this power it had grown and evolved, and he could project his emotions onto others. So when he was feeling really bad about something sometimes it was easy to pick these emotions up from him, but the blocking potion made him like a glass wall – something Chris, at least, liked. No emotions could get out unless Chris willed them to.

He always had his silences, and they were often when he was getting the least of his thinking done. Ben could tell that there were many issues chasing around and around in his brain that refused to stop, and therefore he could not think right now.

He winced slightly as he realized that he was psychoanalyzing his friend and stopped, gingerly pressing a bruise on his abdomen that he didn't remember getting. He took a sharp intake of breath and hissed as he touched it.

Both of them were still looking rather worse for wear from last night. Bruises stood out livid purple and rust red scabs snaked their way across flesh. Maybe Chris was angry at always having himself and his friends hurt and then not even getting to vanquish the demon that had done it.

"Are you going to do that all day?" Ben asked eventually, feeling the need for a break in the monotony. An amused smile playing across his lips as the ball slipped from his friend's grasp and fell off of the bed, bouncing once on the carpet before rolling under the bed.

"Not anymore." Chris huffed, dangling his upper body over the edge of the bed to root around underneath the piece of furniture. Chris's fingers brushed over many, many things that weren't his ball and his arm disappeared to the elbow as he pulled a face.

"Lots of things go under the bed. None of them come out," Ben told him with a small shrug. "Sorry."

"What, do the dust bunnies eat them or something?" Chris asked jokingly, his face falling. "That was so not funny because that's gonna happen one of these days..."

Images of over-sized balls of fluff bearing down on them crossed his mind, and he vowed to vacuum under his bed when he got home. He sighed, paused, and then, "Dammit!" He growled, hitting the floor with his free hand. He turned his neck to look at Ben and narrowed his eyes as he continued to search for his ball.

"Told you. You might as well go and see Bridget now you have nothing to distract yourself with. You still owe her, remember?" Ben asked, his eyes glinting mischievously as Chris frowned at him.

"You're enjoying reminding me of that, aren't you?" Chris asked, suddenly withdrawing his arm in triumph, revealing a baseball clutched in his hand. "Oh, this doesn't look much like a tennis ball." he frowned and examined it, turning it over.

"Hey, I've been looking for that." Ben said. Chris rolled his eyes and threw it at Ben, who caught it and put it on the desk next to him. It rolled across the surface and, by a freak chance, dodged all of the piles of junk and dropped between the wall and the desk. "Are you planning on losing your ball down there any time soon?" Ben asked hopefully, as Chris half-rolled, half-fell off of the bed and onto the floor, landing with an awkward thump and seeing spots as the blood rushed back down out of his head. He blinked a few times and shoved his arm in up to his shoulder, his fingers grazing over the carpet and the grittiness of dirt.

"No." Was the adamant but muffled reply, because he had the side of his face pressed into the comforter.

"Worth a shot." Ben shrugged and then paused, chewing on his lip. "So what happened with Wyatt last night?" His words seemed to shatter the playful banter in the room and he swallowed, half-afraid that Chris wouldn't reply. The witch-whitelighter had been skirting around this point for ages now, more worried, Ben assumed, about his up-and-coming time that Bridget was forcing him to spend with her than explaining about last night.

Chris ate away at the time it took to figure out an answer by rummaging extra-vigorously, mulling the events over in his mind. His shoulder was starting to ache and he shifted it to the left slightly, barely relieving the pain.

"He came in around midnight," he began finally. "Face was busted up pretty good. They thought I was asleep. Mom and my aunts orbed him home and he just fell into his bed. And then they woke me up because they thought they had to go and rescue me next." Ben could see his friend sigh even if he didn't make a noise.

Chris left out the part where his family barely noticed him, so deep was their concern for Wyatt, and the chill he got off of his sleeping brother when he had snuck out of his own bed to question Wyatt about what had happened. His brother's mouth formed a smirk even as he slept, and there was something so self-satisfying about that look, something so definitely not the Wyatt he had grown up with.

The dried blood on the scab on his lip and the way the bruise was leaking blood under his skin because he hadn't elevated his head enough was menacing, as if Wyatt had fought some great war and won.

Chris only hoped that that war had been between Wyatt and the Underworld, not within himself.

But in his best friend's room, with light streaming diagonally in through the picture window that offered a view of the bay and the whole place covered in sun that could only be from Southern California, his fears felt like that of a small child, a small child who realized that his brother had grown up and was not the same person that had played games with him anymore.

"So what had he been doing?" Chris closed his eyes, knowing that it was a fair question and that he owed Ben an answer.

This was top of Ben's priority list for finding out. What Wyatt had done so far made so little sense, and nagging suspicions were beginning to creep into his mind and tingle at the base of his skull, never allowing him to forget that they were there. There had always been something with Wyatt that Ben had never been able to pinpoint.

"Mom was talking to Aunt Paige this morning about all the scorch marks all over the Underworld."

Chris, too, had doubts about Wyatt, especially after his brother had left him in the cage all by himself. There was something about Wyatt's voice and posture, the cold and calculating way he had vanquished Drox that didn't sit well with Chris, and it would be a long time before he forgot how Wyatt's eyes had turned from blue to grey as a twisted smile lit them up, especially as he had to sleep with Wyatt just feet away with only a small cinderblock wall between them.

"You think he stole the demon's powers to go killing in the Underworld?" Ben asked incredulously, unfolding his legs and then tucking them back underneath him to relieve a cramp. The blood flow brought pins and needles to his toes, but he ignored it.

Something wasn't really adding up with Wyatt. As long as Ben and known Chris he'd known Wyatt, and the blonde witch-whitelighter had never liked him. There was some kind of aura around Wyatt that Ben didn't like, and he said so often enough. Chris, torn between his best friend and his brother, had always stayed as neutral as he could.

With Wyatt there had always been some element of danger there, especially when he allowed his mask to slip and showed off some of the raw power he possessed. Ben just didn't like the guy, and all of the reasons he came up with were poorly explained, argued, and just seemed plain petty. There was nothing _solid,_ and you couldn't point fingers that way. That was the kind of thinking that started the Salem witch trials.

"I have no idea and I really don't want to think about it- And this better not be another baseball." he added, grumbling as he fought to remove his shoulder. His jacket sleeve was covered in dust and he blew and picked it off, grinning at the tennis ball in his hand.

He threw it hard at Ben, who barely managed to catch it before it hit his head.

"What was that for?" The witch demanded, tossing it back at Chris just as hard.

"For your stupid bed losing my ball," Chris answered, bouncing the ball off of the wall above Ben's bed and catching it.

The simple repetitiveness of this motion started to dull Chris's mind again, and he was pleased that he had managed to draw Ben away from questions. The rhythm soothed him and placated his brain, which was currently trying to run rings around itself and giving him a headache.

"When're you gonna see Bridget?" Ben asked, and when Chris looked the grin on his friend's face was enough to earn the ball being thrown at his head again.

The light-heartedness was back in the room, and Chris could feel the confusion fogging his brains begin to thin again, lessening its grip. Ben tried to snatch the ball out of the air but missed, and it caught the swiping motion of his hand and flew back towards Chris, hitting the floor and rolling back under the bed.

"HA!" Ben shouted in triumph, before laughing at Chris's face. Chris tk'd a cushion at Ben in annoyance.

_**Last One Standing**_

Bridget rounded the corner, balancing the towel she was using as a turban for her wet hair with one hand and using her foot to nudge out the stool under her vanity table.

She was singing under her breath the same song that had been stuck in her head, the annoying tune that got under her skin after she'd heard it on the radio and had not been able to remove since. She hummed her way through the tune when there got to a gap in the knowledge of the lyrics, avoiding stubbing her toe on one of her shoes.

Bridget growled slightly and plugged the hairdryer in with a little too much force, and was adjusting the mirror when the reflection made her turn and scream – the noise shattering the song in her head - and she had just enough time to be grateful before she jumped up from the stool, knocking it backwards and clutching one hand tighter around the towel she had wrapped around her body.

The sudden movement caused the precarious towel on top of her had to wobble and fall to the carpet with a kind of odd splat, and wet black hair tumbled down out of it as it dropped, sticking to her face. She raked it out of the way angrily with her fingers.

"Are you trying to scare me to death?" She demanded, snatching the towel from the floor and pulling the larger one tighter still around her. She forced her heart rate to slow down and succeeded, quashing adrenaline rushes was one of the things that she did best. Shock was replaced by anger and her eyes narrowed.

"Um- uh- I..." Chris swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. His mouth opened and closed, failing to work in coordination with his brain. All he was able to focus on was a droplet of water running down from her hair, and he followed the bead's trail down past her collarbone until it soaked into the top edge of the towel, disappearing into the fabric.

"Hm," the Hunter said, smiling at the apparent loose connection. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Chris..." she said slowly, walking a few paces towards him, her eyes questioning, searching his own. She shook her head and smiled.

His mouth opened as if he were about to say something again, but the roof was dry and his tongue was sticking to it. He managed an odd strangled noise that he hoped Bridget would take as a 'yes'. He swallowed again.

He had a dream like this once. It had been very nice, actually. Bridget wasn't featured in it of course, mainly because he didn't like to think of her that way. She was his friend and nothing more, but it led him to feeling awkward and wondering if he was going to go to that special level of hell. The place where they reserved for child molesters and people who talked into the theatre.

She stopped walking and leant forward, closer to him as if she was going to whisper** c**onspiratorially in his ear. "WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL HERE?!" The yelling made the young witch-whitelighter jump out of his skin and he stuttered an incoherent apology before dissolving in a swirl of orbs.

Satisfied Bridget smirked, sat down and picked up her dryer, flicking it on. The screeching filled the room and Chris's face replayed over and over against her eyelids as she leaned over and turned the volume up on her stereo to full to counteract the appliance in her hand.

_**Last One Standing**_

Chris leant against the wall outside Bridget's door, closing his eyes and forcing himself to control his breathing and stop the blood rushing around his body, particularly in his face. He forced the blood vessels to constrict again and turn his cheeks back to their normal colour and letting out a shaky breath.

Bridget was- and she... He groaned slightly, putting his head in his hands. Bridget was his _friend_ and a damn good one at that and here he was sitting outside her room, thinking about... her...

He grabbed the ball that had been twice retrieved from under Ben's bed from his pocket and threw it viciously at the opposite wall, the thunk and rebound satisfying as it pinged off of that wall and then onto the one over his head. Some tension relieved he watched the ball roll and then come to a stop on the floor and he picked it up, throwing it at the ceiling.

Bad, bad thoughts. He wished they would stop circling around his head. He swallowed, hating his mind for bailing on him like that and leaving him a gibbering idiot in front of Bridget. His sense had totally been somewhere else, somewhere other than on the then and there with Bridget... He hated his brain, and hated his body for betraying him.

It was only Bridget, dammit. Plain, short, black-haired Bridget who loved kicking ass and had an incredibly twisted sense of humour. The Hunter he'd known for ages now. So why was he acting like this over her? He gnawed on his bottom lip and leaned farther back into the wall, feeling the bass from the Hunter's music making the wall vibrate. He smiled and shook his head, throwing the ball in the air and catching it, finally feeling the flush fade from his cheeks. It was just Bridget and her music and her hairdryer... and her towel.

Dammit.

_**Last One Standing**_

"_Oh, Josh, why are you leaving me?" The woman asked, her eyes glittering with tears as she looked up into the man's face. Her face wore a pained expression, the sort of one you might wear if you had trapped wind._

"_We've discussed this, Sally. I've got to go. My country needs me." He was dressed in army uniform, and had a kitbag slung over one shoulder._

"_But I love you, Josh!" She sobbed, sitting down on the window seat and staring out, her chin held dramatically high, her lips trembling pathetically. _

"_Sally, don't be like this..." he took a step towards her and she turned her head away and he stood still_

"_Oh..." she gave an overdramatic sob and kept turned away from him, fingering the velvet of the curtains. She sniffed loudly, removing a lacy handkerchief from somewhere and dabbing at her eyes with the corner of it, the rest of the cloth held in her fist._

"_Now I'll be back, Sally, trust me..."_

"_Oh, Josh, but I'll miss you so..." she lamented, her Southern twang getting more and more noticeable the more and more upset she got. Her hair was rigid and was stuck in place with several hairpins in waves and enough styling products to punch and fifty-foot hole in the ozone layer._

_He tilted her chin upwards so she would look him in the eye, and she stood up, throwing her arms around his neck in one gushing movement._

"_Josh!" She wailed, sobbing into her shoulder as he patted her back and made soothing noises._

"_Now, now, Sally. You'll see me soon..." he said gently as he stroked her face._

"_But what if I don't? What if I never see you again?" She asked, pulling her face from his jacket._

Sally's melodramatic wailing was setting Chris's teeth on edge as he started numbly at the screen, sighing as the black and white figures continued to play out their pathetic scene. His mind had wandered and he assumed it lost, and he hoped it had found something better to do than sit here and watch these movies.

Next to him on the couch Bridget had her legs curled under her and a bowl of popcorn on her lap. She sobbed and blew her nose into a tissue, discarding it onto the floor with a sea of others and grabbing another Kleenex out of the box to dry her eyes with.

"Bridget, this film isn't even in colour!" The witch-whitelighter complained, hoping that blowing her nose had taken her out of the film enough for her to answer him. He wanted his complaint to be heard now, but she shushed him with a wave of her hand.

Chris sighed and rolled his eyes, breaking the screen's reflection in them. He hated this stupid film. The lead actress had blubbed her way through the whole damn thing, breaking down every time an eyelash fell out, and the main actor just spoke in a deep voice and comforted her every time. Pathetic.

When Bridget had asked him to watch these with her as his 'servitude' she knew how much it was going to torture him. He looked into her face and wondered if there was sadistic pleasure going on behind the tears. It _was_ Bridget, so there most probably was. He groaned but she spoke up.

"Shush! He's about to propose!" Bridget demanded silence, and he suddenly realized that she had seen the film before. She was mouthing the words to some parts apparently subconsciously, and she knew the plot. So why was she watching it again? Her face was stained with tear tracks and yet her eyes remained fixed on the TV. The white tissues scattered all over the carpet like engorged snowflakes and she crumpled the one she had in her hand and tossed it down with the others. Chris rolled his eyes in a reaction that he was told was typical of him and tried, tentatively, again.

"Bridget..."

She threw the cushion she was hugging to her chest at him. "Quiet!"

He raised his hands and froze the cushion, grabbing it out of the air, realizing that the force of Bridget's throw, had been intending to force the wind out of his diaphragm so she could get some peace. He pushed the cushion onto the floor and rolled his eyes.

_Sally gasped, putting both hands to her mouth as Josh bent on one knee and pulled out a box from his breast pocket. "Oh, Josh..."_

"_See here, Sally," he said, opening the lid. "This ring was my grandmother's. I know she'd want you to have it. Now you know I'm coming back..."_

"_Oh!" Sally said, holding out her finger for Josh to slip the ring onto. Soon her shaking hands returned to her quivering lips and she began to cry again._

"Is that the only thing she can say? I'm sensing a pattern here... 'Oh, Josh...' and then she cries..." Chris asked, exasperated at the woman. He could nearly feel is brain dribbling out of his ear and onto the couch as the grey cells slowly died off one by one. This wasn't fair, he needed those guys...

This was boring, and... boring... He couldn't even think of a decent synonym for what this was, that was how mushy and runny his brain felt. He was sure that if he moved his head it would slosh against the inside of his skull. He sighed loudly, looking at Bridget who was clutching yet another Kleenex in her hand and, lips trembling, was mouthing the words.

Chris looked back at the screen and in front of it where assorted discs scattered across the carpet. He heart skipped a beat when he realized that they must have watched all of them by now. Finally, it had taken them long enough to get through them.

"_Remember, Sally, I'll always be with you." He took her hand in his and put it over her chest. "In here."_

"Oh, Josh..." Chris muttered darkly, just as Sally uttered those very words. He sighed heavily once more, he really couldn't help himself. He could think about something else...

Special hell... 

Chris paid more attention to the movie in the last five minutes than he had throughout the rest of the day.

Cheesy string music blared and the camera zoomed out on the lovers' last passionate clinch, their kissing the last thing on the screen until the whole thing faded to black and _The End _was scrawled across the screen. At last disappeared as well, and the screen turned blue, with writing on it in white saying 'stop'.

Chris immediately sagged with relief and Bridget, deprived the box of its last tissue to blow her nose a final time. She sighed dreamily and then blinked a few times, before clapping her hands together.

"Right." The Hunter slid off of the couch and began stuffing tissues into the wicker wastepaper basket. Chris yawned, stretched and blinked and went to undo the blinds. Early-evening sunlight slanted into the room, and Bridget hissed and squinted. "Do you know how bright that is?" She demanded, shielding her eyes.

"Yup," Chris said, turning his back to the window and grinning, shoving all four fingers on both of his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, leaving his thumbs out.

Bridget narrowed her eyes at him. "Being a smartass will be the death of you, you know that?"

Chris only shrugged and smirked as Bridget sat back on her heels, stuffed the last Kleenex away and half-crawled over to the entertainment centre, ejecting the disc out and putting it back into its box.

"I don't think I've ever watched these all in one go before..." Bridget said, sniffing and wiping her nose on the back of her hand and sorting out her eyelashes with her fingers. Within five minutes no one could tell that she had been crying.

"Um." Chris was itching to go now, be anywhere but here where he could still here those damn people echoing around in his head, their situations imprinted deeply into his brain as if they had been done with a branding iron.

"Chris?" She asked at last, looking into his face.

"Yeah?" He turned to look at her as she got up and brushed the knees of her dark jeans off. He smiled goofily at her and she rolled her eyes.

"I don't want anyone knowing about these movies, ok? If you tell _anyone_ I'll be forced to kick you, got it?"

Chris gaped again, blinking in surprise. That hadn't been what he thought Bridget was going to say, and it had thrown him. "Just try it."

"And have you hide behind your freezing power? Please..." she clapped her hands together. "You're done, you can go now."

Chris rolled his eyes and kept his gaze locked on her face before orbing away.

_**Last One Standing**_

"And then she threw you out?" Ben asked, frowning in confusion.

Chris looked at the other witch, pleased to see that he too was incapable of understanding the way Bridget's mind worked. He was so confused about Bridget, and sitting her talking it over with Ben was barely helping, mainly because Ben didn't get it either.

"Not exactly... She just like dismissed me or something." Chris sighed and rolled over, staring at the ceiling. "My servitude was done, and she just- You know what? I don't know."

Ben paused, chewing on his bottom lip. He slowly began, "So she doesn't like you? Or she does." Ben settled farther back into the chair. "Or she doesn't like you and doesn't want to know- Or she actually likes you, but can't tell you?" Ben paused again, running a hand over his eyes. "This is so confusing."

Again Chris was comforted by Ben's confusion; it meant that it wasn't him in the wrong, if Ben agreed as well. "You're telling me! You weren't on the end of it..." Chris sighed again and began to count the cracks in the ceiling, results of a recent earthquake.

"Chris, she just wanted you to watch those stupid movies with you, which are all really un-Bridget-like, by the way."

Bridget, he assumed, would be watching ass-kicking action movies with explosions and gunfire, and Kung-Fu hand-to-hand combat. She would, in his mind, spend the whole movie complaining about how poor the fighting looked, and how she could always do it better. But sappy romances...?

"Yeah. Don't tell her I told you about those. Threats were made-" he paused, chewing on his bottom lip. "But..."

"Yeah, 'but' is the word... I really though she liked you, man... I mean she's always... And she didn't try anything?"

Chris shook his head no. He couldn't work out why. He thought that Bridget had had a crush on him for ages, and today had been the perfect opportunity for her to show him that. That was what he had been expecting; a display of what he had assumed was a mutual feeling between them.

"Maybe you're just not meant to understand her, ok? She's just acting really, really weird but she's female, and it's like in her job description or something." Ben gave a feeble half-shrug off of Chris's look. "Sorry, I'm not helping, am I?"

"No."

The conversation hit an awkward snag and faced derailment, and Ben did the first thing that came to his mind. "Here, have a tennis ball," the witch said, throwing it onto his friend's chest.

Chris rolled his eyes and started bouncing it off of the ceiling lazily. "You think I'm so easily distracted, don't you?"

Ben laughed. "No," Chris sat slightly up and cocked a sceptical eyebrow at him. "I know so." Ben ducked immediately and the ball hit the back of the chair where his head had been moments before.

_**Last One Standing**_

"No!" Nixa said, her eyes alight with the wonder. "Seriously?" She looked back towards Bridget, who had fallen back slightly as the crowd thickened outside The Gap, which was having a sale.

Bridget used her elbows and soon she was walking side by side with Nixa again, squeezing out of the crowd. "Yup," she replied, her voice flat.

Nixa was quizzing her on her afternoon with Chris. Bridget didn't know why exactly, she was, after all, far too unsure about what had happened – or, in fact, hadn't – that she couldn't even begin to work it out for herself, let alone for Nixa.

She saw the way Chris reacted when he caught her just out of the shower and she though that it meant that things would progress well afterwards, but nothing had happened. She didn't get it.

Nixa didn't notice. "So he saw you-"

"Uh-huh."

"And he-"

"You got it."

"Wow..." Nixa said, dumping three bags full of shopping next to an empty chair and sat on it as Bridget dragged one over from a different table. "I bet his jaw hit the floor."

Nixa was way too chirpy for a time like this, and Bridget scowled up at the night sky, which was winking deep blue at her through one of the glass pyramids on the roof of the mall. She looked back down at Nixa and the crowd in the Dairy Queen. "You know for a girl against the Bimbo Stereotype you sure do shop a lot," she mused.

Nixa frowned. "I'm high-maintenance. There are high-maintenance brunettes as well, you know." She paused awkwardly, scrambling for words. "And quit with the subject changing!"

Bridget sighed. "Ok. We watched the movies and..."

"And?"

The glare Bridget shot Nixa shut the blonde up for long enough for her to continue. "And that was it. We watched the movies. I don't think he liked them all that much, but we watched them."

"Wow." Nixa put her bag on the table and rummaged through it for a little while, but pulling nothing out. "That sucks... Were you... nice to him?"

"Hey!" Bridget snorted. "I'm always nice!"

Nixa raised a sceptical eyebrow at her.

"Well I said he could have popcorn... That was... kind of nice, right?"

Nixa laughed and shook her head. "So you watched movies... And then nothing... That sucks... I said that already, didn't I?"

"Hey! It didn't suck... He just didn't... I thought he liked me... Romantic films and it was dark and... Nothing. Nada, zilch, zero. What's up with that?"

Bridget sighed. She thought Chris liked her, _like_ liked her, as she would have said had she been about eight. But Chris had had all those damn opportunities today and yet nothing had come out of it. Her head was reeling.

"He didn't even try to... you know?" There was a hopeful note in her voice, and Nixa was sure that Bridget would tell her every detail, but when she looked into Bridget's face all she saw there was disappointment, so she pushed the question away. "Nothing?"

"No, he was just half-dead with the movies. I like my movies." Bridget pouted and sighed. "He just didn't..." There was something on the table that had stuck there and solidified, and Bridget picked it with her nail, shaving it off layer by layer in a heap of thin curls.

There was a pause as Nixa struggled to find something to say. Bridget became more and more absorbed in scraping at the table and more and more conscious of the gunk she was getting up her nail.

"Will chocolate help?" Nixa asked, leaning forward towards Bridget and taking her hand in hers, pulling it away from the sticky spill. "And stop that, it's gross."

"Bah. I hate men... They're confusing... You wanna become a nun with me? We could run off and see if any monks want us..."

Nixa cocked an eyebrow at her.

"I forgot about the celibacy, huh? No sex for the nuns..." Nixa was still looking her as if she needed to be committed, and she sighed. "Chocolate? Definitely."

Nixa blinked. "Then ice cream is the way to go," Nixa said, with a happy shrug as she leant backwards. "And it's all one me, mainly because that guy's here again..."

"Ok. I'll sit here moping." The Hunter took out her chewing gum and pressed it onto the underside of the table.

"Lovely." As Nixa walked past she patted Bridget on the head. "Good girl." Nixa left to go to the counter.

"Make it double chocolate!" Bridget called, wincing as she realized that the whole of Dairy Queen had heard her. Heads turned in her direction and, cheeks aflame, she smiled weakly and muttered, "Great, just great..."

_**Last One Standing**_

"Hey, Wyatt." Chris said dully, tossing his bag onto his bed and coming down the stairs.

He was surprised to see his brother awake, especially after he had been so hurt and drained last night. A closer inspection revealed that none of the traces of his absentee stint remained on his face. He was sitting on top of the comforter on his bed, his back against the headboard.

Chris narrowed his eyes slightly as creeping suspicions came to the surface of his mind. There was something –different- about Wyatt. Just something that he couldn't place his finger on. He shook his head, obviously having been spending far too much time around Ben.

"Hey," the blonde said, taking in Chris's features. Chris had a split lip, a bruise on his jaw and a scab masking a cut above his eye. Every step Chris took he was reminded that the wounds Wyatt could see were the least of his worries. His ankle burned and when he had stumbled in the street on the way home he swore he had felt a rib grate together. Maybe he had fractured a couple of them. "Dad came by earlier, healed us all right up. You weren't here."

"Figures..." Chris muttered, feeling his ribs protest as he shrugged his jacket off. He had taken a long, hot shower this morning to ease the aches but they had come back with friends. He saw a purple bruise on his arm as his sleeve rolled up as he removed his jacket, and yanked the sleeve of his long-sleeved t-shirt down.

Chris hooked his jacket over the banister and flopped onto his bed, burying his face in his pillow and closing his eyes, wishing that everything could just disappear, and that he could stay in this darkness forever.

"So you saw what I did with the demon yesterday, right?" Wyatt asked after a short silence, and Chris rolled over to look at him, his hair mussed at different angles and his eyes bleary and blurred with tiredness. It seemed that everything in the world was going around inside his head right now and he just wanted it all to stop. Chris said nothing, just blinked at his brother and willed him to continue with his eyes. "Pretty cool, no?"

"If you call wrenching out a demon's heart cool, then yeah..." Chris pulled a face, not really knowing where Wyatt was going with this. Again he felt something different within his brother, but he pushed it to the back of his mind.

"So that's a yes, then?"

Chris opened his mouth to protest but couldn't summon the energy or the words and closed it again, apparently in doing so allowing Wyatt to plough on.

"Well why don't you try it, then?" The glint in his brother's eyes unsettled Chris, and he subconsciously sat up with a frown on his face.

"What do you mean?" He asked slowly, eyes slightly narrowed.

Wyatt got up, the gleam still present. It was enough to start Chris's heart fluttering as he looked into Wyatt's eyes, searching them with his own green ones to try and see what Wyatt's next move could be. He concentrated and tried to pull a reading from his brother's emotions, but the jolt he got from trying hit him almost painfully near his heart and he winced, as if his power had been turned against him.

"What's the matter? Can't pull any of that emotion stuff on me?"

Chris said nothing, only sighed. "Huh?"

His head hurt and he suddenly felt himself lose control of his empathy powers, a huge array of emotions hitting him hard enough to force his eyes closed. The emotions running through his blood felt as if they had sharp edges, gouging out their own channels through his skin.

Quite suddenly, they stopped.

"What the fuck was that?" Chris panted, his eyes moving left and right as he tried to suss his brother out.

"What was what?"

Chris paused, Wyatt's innocence confusing him. What had happened? All he knew was that he had tried to get a reading off of Wyatt and then... Had Wyatt known that that would happen to him?

"You ok, Chris?"

Chris blinked, looking up into Wyatt's face and jumping backwards when he realized how close his brother had got without him realizing.

"Uh..." Chris felt the cold wall on his back and swallowed.

"Yeah..." Wyatt frowned. "So what about those demons, then? Huh? Come on..." his expression cleared as he said this, his eyes alight with the passion of a madman.

"Do what you want to do with demons, Wyatt, ok? I'm beat so just..."

Wyatt caught Chris's arm, and the younger teen squirmed slightly in the grip, looking back up at Wyatt again, trying to keep the fear from him.

"What are you afraid of?"

Chris suddenly realized that Wyatt had been invading his own emotions and was reading them with startling clarity through the blocking potion he had taken.

"You mean you don't want the power of it all? The feeling of power like this coursing through you? Do you?"

"Let go!" Chris demanded, as Wyatt's fingers dug deeper into his forearm. The gold of his brother's class ring gleamed in the light spilling from somewhere, and Chris couldn't register where it was coming from.

"Come with me, Chris."

"You're crazy, Wyatt..." He grabbed his brother's wrist with his free hand and tried to pry the hand holding his arm off, eventually squeezing in just the right spot to make Wyatt's knees buckle with pain. Wyatt cursed and released his arm. Chris glared at him, the pain of broken blood vessels throbbing beneath his skin. "That hurt!"

"There's no pain, Chris. There's no fear, no doubt. Just power. And morons like you who are too weak to see it..." Wyatt suddenly lunged for his brother again, knocking the lamp on the table to the floor.

The light tilted wildly and it thudded as it bounced twice on the carpet, sending its rays across the ceiling and down onto the wall and into Chris's eyes. Chris let out a shout and Wyatt was blasted backwards into the wall above his bed, landing on it was the harsh sound of broken springs.

"What the HELL is happening down here?!" Piper demanded from the stop of the stairs, her brown eyes blazing. "Come on, then! Someone own up!"

"Mom, I... it..."

Suddenly a wave of something hit Chris again and the feeling of metal being scraped across ceramic tiles shot through him, chilling him to the bone. He could barely distinguish the rush of emotions through his body they were just there, working their way through his system... From somewhere distantly he heard his mother calling him but he swayed twice and hit the floor, unfeeling as one of his ribs gave a final snap.

_**Last One Standing**_

"I don't think he's taken his blocking potion recently..."

The voice was above him, he realized, and his brain churned the words through, working their meaning out about thirty seconds after they were said. He opened his eyes and saw at the ceiling of the basement above him. A small light was burning and he realized he was naked from the waist up. He had been sleeping in the boxers he had been wearing that day.

He gave a quiet, groggy groan. Great, someone had put him to bed as if he were about six. Finally his brain caught up and he sat up, thanking whatever deities that were out there that no after affects of whatever had hit him had decided to linger. It took a couple of minutes for his eyes to focus and then he was fine and he sat up.

"Hey..." he murmured.

A hand sliced through the air and his mother slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't you hey me! You scared me half to death!"

"Sorry..." Chris rolled his eyes. "Who were you talking to just now?"

"Your Aunt Phoebe. Seeing as she has expertise in the whole empath area, you know?"

As far as Chris knew, he and Phoebe were the only two Halliwells so far to possess the power of empathy. It was a burden and they both knew it, in ways that no one, unless they had the power, could understand.

Piper continued, "Are you ok? You don't need healing up?"

Chris looked down at himself, and realized that his rubs were encircled with tight white bandages. They constricted his movement slightly, and on his nightstand there was a bottle of antiseptic. More antiseptic. That would be why all of his cuts were stinging.

If truth were known Chris really felt like he did need healing. He looked at Wyatt's bed but his brother was gone, and his father would never answer his summons to heal him, so it looked like it was going to be a painful night for him. He sighed and resigned himself to it.

"Where did Wyatt go?"

"Out... He seemed pretty worked up... Were you two arguing?"

Chris remembered every detail of what had happened all too clearly. "I don't remember."

Piper paused, smoothing the comforter. "Can I talk to you, Chris?"

"What about?" He settled backwards against the headboard and concealed a wince. He didn't want anything to do with Wyatt and his hands, though, not until Chris knew that Wyatt was acting normal again.

Chris's secretive nature was so normal that Piper barely blinked. "Well... You know about Drox? And..."

"And how you didn't come and save me?"

The way Chris said those words drove blades through her heart. The way his eyes showed the pain but his voice never wavered; it was just a simple, direct question. It hung in the air, making it feel stale.

"Well... yeah... We thought you were in the Underworld and when we got there... and when we got there Wyatt was there and we... He was all beat up, honey..."

No it isn't. It's not ok that you went looking for me and then found and cared for Wyatt first. I'm second born, not second best.

Chris gave a slightly pained smile and instead said, "It's ok, Mom."

"Chris?"

"I promise. Wyatt needed you more..." he began berating himself for the lies. What had Wyatt turned him into? All of his instincts told him to tell his mother what had happened with his brother, how crazy Wyatt had been, crazy enough to make Chris use his power on him.

She hugged him. "I know he did. You proved yourself quite a fighter yesterday, you really did. I'm surprised. It was like you'd practised..." she raised an eyebrow at him.

"What have I ever had to practise with?" Chris asked, laughing slightly.

The way he fell into these lies chilled him. It was the start of a web of lies, and he could feel himself spinning it with every word he said. In the end, he would be a fly, stuck in the middle of it.

"Yeah. I'm sorry for not letting you go. You're a witch, with witch instincts, and witches have been hunting demons for so long, well..." she paused, meticulously straightening the comforter even though she could not have ironed it any flatter. "You promise me you don't feel upset because we didn't get you first?"

Piper looked into her son's eyes. She needed this, this reassurance from Chris that she had done nothing wrong, and that he still loved her. The issues he had with his father were another matter, and could never be solved here, but she had to know that her son didn't feel let down.

The pleading in his mother's eyes scared him. There was a look in her eyes that was pleading with him, and he didn't like it. He'd never noticed it before, if it had ever been present at all.

Lies. No mother. It's not okay. Why don't you ever seem to love me?

"I promise."

Part of that was true. He would love his mother whatever. She was one of the best things in his world, so capable of being a mother and a father that he barely noticed Leo's continued ignorance of him. His face fell slightly. He had felt resentment towards her and Wyatt, he had felt that she had forgotten him, and didn't care.

The sticky silk strands weaved their way through each other in a never-ending, spiralling pattern.

_**Last One Standing**_

**Yeah, yeah. It took me bloody long enough, huh? Sorry, I really am. But now Last One Standing is over. Isn't it sad? I've really got to spend some time working on Flames next, maybe get it back up to speed and then it will be more Learning to Tango.**

**This is my last and most important year of school, and it's crippled my social life. Seriously. I have three papers that all count towards my grade that need to be in on Monday, and another 2 that have to be in next week. It's really not looking good I'm afraid, it's so damn unrelenting. Well I've got LOS out now, and it's done. I really hoped you enjoyed it, because I know I have.**

**Pixie Wildfire: - Happy, happy... Happy tree... Hee....**

**Alexis Rose: - I'm done now! It took me long enough but I'm done.**

**NoAlias: - Wow, I wonder what I was smoking when I wrote that? Heh, yeah, evil, bad Wyatt. Bad. Thanks for reviewing.**

**Claddagh Ring: - Soon... About that... Heh, sorry. Thanks for the review.**

**Kel: - Yup, it's all over now... I'm upset...**

**Chattypandagurl: - Thanks.**

**Charmed Amber: - is blocked at our school, cuz under 13s go to it and they might get all kidnapped or something stupid like that. Damn little kids... I need some little kid spray... Heh. Thanks for your review.**

**Dominique1: - Heh. Yeah, you see what I did there?**

**Stony Angel: - There. Try not to wait any more.**

**Queen Isa: - Heh, yeah... I didn't put that in there... Sorry**

**Ok, I'm so tired now. Washed out completely. Final edits and my thanks are sandwiched in between all of the school work I have to do. It looks like I'm going to be reaching for the coffeepot if I want to go out tomorrow...**

**Thanks to:**

**Pixie Wildfire couldn't do all of this without her poking me and demanding more. :D Love you.**

**ChRsTiNe17**

**M J Rosemary**

**Aldrea7 **

**cherry7up56**

**Nemesis' Arrow**

**HollyShadow**

**NoAlias**

**Chattypandagurl**

**Toni**

**Claddagh Ring**

**Stony Angel**

**Dominique1**

**AK8**

**Marysmary**

**princesscatie21**

**GaladInzel**

**karen **

**Taynna**

**Pink-Charmed-One**

**Charmed Amber**

**Random insane person **

**Flephanie**

**MerlinHalliwell**

**CaliforniaChick**

**Succubus-69**

**PiperHalliwell025**

**Rafiki**

**Jessie **

**Erica **

**ashlee **

**DoRK47**

**Queen Isa**

**Alexis Rose**

**As Always**

**Kiseki-no-neko**

**deranged black kitten of doom**

**zoned-out**

**Kel**

**I tired so hard not to miss anyone out, and if I did I'm sorry. I think that's it for LOS now. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.**

**Latah,**

**Twisted Flame**


End file.
